n e n i e

I was born an only child. When I came into this world I had nothing but space to myself. I had a single and it was pimp. A crib, a cool mobile, life was brilliant. Then, my brother Drieg was born. Suddenly, I was given my first ever roommate. We lived together for three or four years until the day, a few weeks after we'd moved into our current home, I realized that there was an empty guest bedroom.

I went to my parents and announced to them that I "needed my space" and was moving into the guest room.

My parents laughed so hard at this that they had no choice but to let me.

That was the beginning of my living alone, my having control over my space. That period lasted a good ten years or so until I moved out to go to IMSA. There, I'd have roommates again, I'd be giving up control over my space for the first time since I'd left Drieg to have the big room all to himself.

Jmitch was my first roommate at IMSA. He was a nice enough guy, but for some reason we just never clicked. We pretended to buy the party line about how sharing space with someone was cool and an adventure. But it just sucked. Neither of us could understand how to make giving up control of our space benefit us in any way, shape or form. My giving up felt like giving him all the control and his giving up felt like I had all the control.

The next two years brought with them the greatest roommates I've ever had. Living with Gunder and Fesser was everything sharing space was supposed to be. We knew what the other guy needed and provided that. We knew what we needed and took that without any complaints from the other guys. The space really was ours, it was a great spatial collaboration. It was a golden age, really. For the first and perhaps only time in my life I was able to share living space with people who wanted to share space with me. By that point in time, I was so used to sharing everything, so happy with having roommates, that I'd forgotten my desire for my 5 year old's demand for his own space. I could never imagine living by myself.

At Carleton I was assigned to a two-room triple with Paul and Mac. Upon moving in, we configured our space in a living room/bedroom arrangement. All the desks but Mac's were in the living room, all the dressers but his were there too. All the beds were in one room. When we'd set this arrangement up, we'd put Mac's and my desks under the built-in shelves telling Paul that if he ever found a need for these shelves, all he need do is ask for a rearrangement. Well, that's what they'd asked for.

One night in Feb of 1998 I was at work when Mac called me.

"Hey, do you mind if we move your bed into the living room so Paul can have his desk under the shelves in the bedroom? We'll do all the moving, it'll be done by the time you get home from work."

When I got home from work, I saw what the effect of this change really was. I'd been given a single. All of my stuff was in the living room, all of their stuff was in the bedroom and for the first time in a really long time, the door between the two rooms was closed. They didn't want to share space with me.

I haven't had a roommate since then.

Sure, that summer I lived in a modified two bedroom with Bacon and the summer after that Bert and I lived in a small studio for a few weeks before moving into a HUGE two bedroom. But for all intents and purposes- I've lived alone. I even paid too much rent in a one bedroom rather than take a roommate summer before senior year. I'd rediscovered my love of space by then and had sworn never to share it again.

Tomorrow, I break that vow.

There's something about living alone, the ability to extert your power and influence over your space. I put my things where I want, I know where everything is, there's no negotiation. I've created a system, I'm incredibly self-sufficient these days.

Nena's moving in, and while I'm incredibly thrilled to have her move in, there's a part of me that is going to miss "having my own space." It's all part of growing up, and I can't imagine that living with Nena is going to be anything less than way better than living with Gunder and Fesser- but still. I'm a solitary creature, an introvert who fakes extroversion really well because I can always come home and recharge.

That's part of the deal, though. Nena gets all these things and that's why she's moving in to begin with. She just "gets" it in a way that most other folks just don't. All the same. . .it's going to be strange. I'm already making concessions about my living space, moving things around in a way that works not only for me, but also for her. It's a give and take I haven't done in so long that I thought I'd never be able to do it again.

But it's working out. Han has a new home, my bedroom looks empty and my coffee table and ottoman are in storage. Small things that mean the world to me. My space is no longer my space, it's a shared item that is defined not my by control, but by my lack of it. Scary, but definitely worth it methinks.

Posted by nenie at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Now usually I don't do this, but let me break you off with a bit of the remix. . .

When I was a much younger fool I used to drink with a guy named Pippi. He was that senior down the hall my frosh year at Carleton. The one who brewed his own beer, smoked a bit of the herb, listened to Boingo and the Velvet Underground and taught me a shitton about life.

He wasn't a guru and I don't worship the man's outlook on life, but he provided me with a perspective that I hadn't really seen before. I honestly wonder how different my life would be if Pippi hadn't taken me in after the frosh on my floor cast me out of their clique.

That's always a rough spot, being the first frosh voted off the island- but Pippi, Lady MC and Vish made things better in their own ways. Strangely, or not, depending on how long and how period you've known me, Pippi is the one of those three I think of most often. Our relationship didn't last much beyond that one year, but sometimes that's all you need.

Why the hell am I talking about Pippi now? No, he isn't dead. Last I heard he was married and in law school out in the Pacific Northwest. Though, I could totally be in error on the married part. He could be shacking up in sin for all I know.

I'm thinking about Pippi today because of the weather. It was Pippi who, along with the Right Rev. Peace, first described the theory of Seasonal Carnage to me. As stated to me, Seasonal Carnage works like so.

The Winds of Carnage announce the arrival of Carnage. The Winds are those strong autumnal/vernal gusts that come by and shift the seasons for us. In the fall, they the dead leaves off the trees and they strip the warmth of summer away, leaving in its wake the crispness of winter. In the spring the bring the warmth of summer, sweeping cold away and bringing the dampness and hope of spring to all the land.

In the fall, these winds announce the end of summer and therfore the end of summer romance. Pippi postulated that during the fall weeks surrounding these winds there would always be a disporportionate number of breakups going on around you. There are any number of reasons for these breakups. Frosh realize that their HTH really isn't as attractive as the hottie down the hall. Upperclassmen realize that their SO isn't all that spectacular after living with them for a summer. People come back from the summer or off campus looking and sounding a lot more attractive than individuals remember. . .there are any number of reasons for the carnage. The important thing is that the carnage exists.

The sister to Fall Carnage is Spring Carnage. In this half of the theory, Pippi postulated that after Fall Carnage came the Winter Hookups. Those relationships that exist because it's cold, you don't want to go out, and really why not shake the cabin fever by shacking up with that hottie down the hall?

As the Winds of Carnage descend, said Pippi, the parkas and sweaters of winter would be pulled off and suddenly you had to actually see what your new partner looked like in the daylight underneath their clothes. Yeah, it's shallow but after years of subsequent observation, I've found this to hold up pretty well.

I'm thinking about all this right now for a number of reasons. First, the Vernal Winds have descended upon us. I thought it was intense a month ago, but yesterday was insane. I sat at my bus stop for 30 minutes after barely missing my bus and I was pelted with flying twigs and dirt and pollen. Yes, pollen. I could feel the pollen smacking me in the face, that shit hurt, yo.

The other reason is that these winds are actually bringing a pretty severe change in my life for the first time in what seems like forever. I haven't had a roommate since those days when Pippi was tutoring me in the ways of college life and on Saturday, that string of single rooms ends. I'm sure I'll have some much longer post about living arrangements, but between the winds and the constant state of upheaval my apartment has been in for the past week- it looks like (to the outside observer) Carnage has come for me too.

I get wistful whenever the winds return. I think back to my misspent undergraduate years and how I misspent them. Right now, I'm thinking of how I participated in the carnage a few times. The majority of my time has come as a spectator, watching the carnage and enjoying the drama. I used to say that I would build the bleachers and make the popcorn enjoy the Carnage from afar.

The Carnage is a strange time of year for me. Even knowing how destructive this time of year is, when it begins again I get nostalgic. I'm reminded of the drama I've seen over the years, the people, the places, the emotions and something strange happens. I don't know how to describe the feeling that comes over me. It's as if I'm revisiting old friends, without ever leaving home.

The joy of these visits is overwhelming sometimes. Especially when you're in as much flux as I am right now. It's incredibly intense, gearing up for a major change in life, with all of your old friends around you in spirit. I can see Alphasarah as she was nearly ten years ago whenever I watch hats get blown off by the winds . I can hear Pippi laughing at something whenever I hear the gusts outside. I see Notmonochrome and Nicepersonality before we ever knew they'd date- nevermind marry- each other. There's Al and CK and Cody and the rest of the crew lounging around the various phases of my life.

Then there's Nena, on the periphery of all these memories. The one wild chase that was actually worth it in the end. And now the chase is coming to a close, the final chapter is beginning and the second volume is set for release. It's amazing how something silly like winds and the ideas that pop in one's altered consciousness have so much poignance. Amazing, but not all that unexpected. After all- this is life and life's not meant to be boring.

Posted by nenie at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Sometimes I collect a few pics on my camera that just need to be shared. Here are two. The first one is of a sign my neighbor has up in front of the building. It just appeared yesterday afternoon. No idea where it came from, it's just, yknow, there. It made me laugh, so I'm sharing it with y'all.

The second one was taken outside of the church in which Lux got married two weeks ago. It cracked my shit up, yo. I think I'm just a sucker for the puns that portable toilet companies work into their corporate names. I know I shouldn't be so easily amused by what is, literally, bathroom humor. But I just can't help myself. Shit's funny.

I just got back from Raw in Topeka. All in all, it was a pretty solid show. Nothing truly incredible other than Kane's character development. But in terms of my own research and thinking of WWE as a site of academic inquiry, tonight was brilliant. The most important thing I came away from tonight's trip to the capitol was that wresting is, at its very heart, a live spectacle. There's something incredibly important and powerful about the community of fans gathered to witness the event. Reading the crowd as text, as it were, can be an incredibly useful tool in understanding how wrestling at its linguistic center, works.

With that in mind, most of my thoughts on the even come from reading the crowd. First off, there were a lot more Evolution and Triple H shirts being worn and purchased than I'd ever have imagined. Talking about wrestling with the same core group of people all the time, I'd been assuming that everyone hated Triple H. Yeah, not so much. The only other superstar who was less represented in the crowd's sartorial tendencies was Stone Cold. Granted, this isn't a terribly scientific survey and I was clued into new purchases by the number of people wearing the Evolution shirt that came out a few weeks ago. Now that I think about it, the shirt people most often had in hand was Eddie Guerrero's new(er) shirt. Yknow, the Scarface one.

Also, people love The Hurricane. People went apeshit when he came out for his Heat match. That made my happy since my glance at the internet this afternoon showed a few rumors of his being fired. This also gets to another interesting point about the night. Raw hadn't been in Topeka in 7 years. That's dating back to the birth of the Attitude Era when you think about it. As such, a lot of the fans were really, really unsure as to what all was going on. There was still a newness to the event that I hadn't seen in my previous trips to shows in Minneapolis and Chicago.

These fans were also a bit more casual than the ones I'm used to seeing at live shows. The guys I was sitting next to claimed to watch Raw every weekend. But their knowledge of who was on this show versus who was on Smackdown was a bit suspect. Granted, sitting where we were signaled that we'd waited until the last minute to buy tickets and I normally buy my tix on the first day of onsale- so that might account for some of the issues.

It was an interesting show, though. I'd forgotten how slowly the taping goes, though. On TV, it goes by so fast, but in the house you'd get a quick match then a LOOOONG lag before the next match.

Like I said a few days ago, I haven't been to a show since I graduated from Carleton. And tonight was just a different experience from those days. I don't know how to place my finger on it, and I'm sure I'll have more thoughts in the coming days, but it was all just rather strange not being there with the old crew.

At any rate, it's late and I should be off to bed. More to come soon, I'm sure.

Posted by nenie at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seriously, I lost track of it somehow, somewhere.

The packing has gone really well. Everything that has to be in storage IS in storage, save for two things.

1) The last box, which is full of all the crap I missed in packing the first time. It ways a metric shitton and I can't move it without help. I think The Nibblet is going to get roped into helping me with this unless I manage to get a bleary-eyed Corn to do it early this morning.

2) My bookshelf. It doesn't fit in 'Turo so I'm going to need someone's truck to move it. As soon as it's moved then I can move Han into the living room and rearrange my bedroom to free up some more room so Nena and I can find our way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. As it is now, I can barely get through in the middle of the night. Having to hurdle over Nena is going to add a level of difficulty that necessitates making more room.

This weekend I've moved so much dust that I SERIOUSLY need to vacuum. However, I can't vacuum until I move the BIG ASSED BOX(tm). Yeah, lots of conditionals in my life these days.

I have a rough draft of my 802 paper. It's 20pgs right now. There are some serious holes in it and it needs to be gone over with the finest of tooth combs, but that'll happen later on tonight after I locate a copy of The Mambo Kings in this town and watch it and write a rough draft of my paper for 650. Bigg funn, yo. I'm really, really annoyed that Sarah stole my copy of that movie back at Carleton. Man, I could really use it right about now.

Those are the two big things for tonight, write a rough draft of the 650 paper and edit the 802 paper. Once I do those two things I can throw myself into reading and create the time I need to go to Raw tomorrow night. I'm really, really exicted about this trip. It's gonna RULE.

Also, I'm finally caught up on the New Mexico blogging.

New Mexico- part 3
New Mexico- part 4
New Mexico- part 5

Also, The Get Up Kids. I'm addicted right now. I mean, I've appreciated them for a while, but I burned my iTunes songs getting a few of their songs. . .now, I need them. Funny how that works.

OK, time to get to work. I'll hopefully be updating a lot more often from now on. I think I'm through the rough part of the term.

Posted by nenie at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Lots and lots of updates going on 'round here.

First off- Three updates have been done tonight.

From March:
New Mexico part 1
New Mexico part 2

From April:
NOLA part 2

OK, now for the present. It's been insane out here in L-Town. I presented a paper this Monday at the Mid-American American Studies Association conference. Between preparing for that and going to NOLA last weekend. . .I spent the whole week catching up. Thankfully though, I remembered my rockstar ways of last week and I managed to crank out some decent work.

Not only that, but I also rented a storage locker.

I spent today packing up my clothes and books and moving everything into storage. I watched the NFL Draft all moring and Ulli came over this afternoon to help me get everything over to the locker. I'm happy with how Da Bears did as well. Two decent DTs and a WR with some speed. Hopefully this QB of the future really is the future.

It's amazing, I know I should feel like I have all of this new extra space in my apartment. . .but I don't. Maybe it's because the bookshelf is still here and all of the other space I cleared out came from closet and dresser.

I'm getting excited about Monday as well. Raw is going to be in Topeka and I have tickets. I haven't been to a live event in three years and I'm kinda looking forward to going. Funny thing is, I've realized that most of my favorite wrestlers are on Smackdown these days. It gets even more amusing when you realize that Smackdown isn't my can't miss show of the week, Raw is.

Oh well. I really should get some sleep. I have a lot to do tomorrow. Reading, writing and packing. Bigg funn, yo.

Posted by nenie at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The trip to NOLA was good for me. Now that I'm back in Lawrence, I'm sure I'll be paying for it for quite a while. But I'm glad I went, because I wasn't going to go. A few months ago, I looked ahead to this weekend and realized that going was totally the least sane thing I could do. Then it hit me, this invitation was a chance to revisit a time in my life when I always did the least sane thing. And sometimes, sanity is definitely overrated.

I'm glad I took the path of most resistance this weekend. It's made all the difference. It was important that I be there, if not for Lux, then definitely for me.

Saturday morning continued after a few hours of sleep on Aretela's luvseat. Golly was frolicking on the floor in front of me, playing with a ball he'd located somewhere in the bowels of the apartment and The Grandmastah was sill passed out on the couch across the living room; life was pretty much the way I'd left it a few hours earlier.

Eventually the whole house got up and people took showers and made plans to go to Cafe du Monde with Wanje and Jax a bit later on in the morning. As I was in the shower I actually computed how much longer I was going to be in town and realized that I was totally running out of time to hang with Aretela. Not spending time with her this weekend seriously bordered on criminal so I broke plans with GMS and Wanje and instead headed out into into the city, so she could show me her NOLA.

"There's a whole other town that isn't on St. Charles or The Quarter," she told me as we drove off down Magazine in search of lunch, or breakfast or whatever the hell meal it is that we were going to eat. We eventually found a place, ate and were off again to see Tulane and other parts of town. It was good to begin to see Aretela's NOLA, a town I'd heard her tell me about for years now. In hearing about her NOLA over the years my map of the town just didn't overlay onto her map so well. It was nice to have that all cleared up.

I even got to look at her bridge. It was pretty freakin' cool.

We got back to her place in plenty of time for me to change for the wedding and pretty soon I was back out of the house and on my way to pick The Grandmastah up.

As different friends get married, I'm always in awe at how their services mirror their personalities, at how I see this friend of mine reflected in how they choose to get married. Alphasarah and M's, Wanje and Bear's, Notmonochrome and Nicepersonality's, Gunder and Belle's- all of these weddings reflected back so much about these people that I cared for. Lux's wedding was no different. There she was, up on the altar- getting married. Watching people I love get married is always one of the most intense experiences for me. I feel like I'm having someone decontextualized and recontextualized simultaneously in front of my very eyes.

This wedding was particularly intense for me. Being Episcopalian it's pretty similar to the Catholic Mass I'm going to be married in so I spent a lot of time in reflection during the service. I realized that I still hold a lot of anger within me. I thought I'd vented all of that away a long time ago, but I was wrong. There's this residual crap kicking around in my soul and it had to go.

Right there, in the middle of Lux's wedding- I let go.

It was one of the best things that has ever happened to me and it happened right there in the middle of Lux's wedding. Incredible.

Later that night, the wallet-less Wanje (loser stole her wallet earlier in the day), GMS and I drove to the reception. After getting turned around a bit we eventually found our way and received ROCKSTAR parking in the lot adjacent to the hall. No, you don't understand. This parking was SO good The Grandmastah thought it wasn't for us. Oh, but it was. . .it was.

The reception was nice. A nice room, a nice band and good people. I didn't get to see as much of all the people I wanted to see- but I did get to spend quite a bit of time with Alphasarah, which is all that matters. Right? I should have danced- but Nena is the only one I want to dance with these days. Whenever I dance with anyone else I get annoyed that they don't know how I lead, that they don't read my mind, that they're not built like Nena. So yeah, I didn't dance- but I did talk to people and enjoy a really beautiful night.

Morning came all too quickly and before you knew it, Alphasarah, M and I were on our way to the airport. I didn't get to The Quarter at all and the only real reason that makes me sad is because I really dig Preservation Hall. Oh well, I'll catch it on my next trip down- in May.

I sat next to Alphasarah on the flight to Dallas and as we flew out of NOLA and rode the TRAAIN together in Dallas I was left to be in awe. In awe because of where I was and where I was going. How the hell did I get here? I'll never forget the first time I met Lux, I was 18 at the time and my perfectly ordered universe was very rapidly coming undone. Between then and now is a life lived and explored which has culminated in the series of moments I'm attempting to chronicle from my desk in Kansas.

How the hell did I get here? I don't know- but it's a fucking good story.

Posted by nenie at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's something about this place that I'll never quite figure out. That's probably a good thing. I never mind the humidity in this town, never mind that nothing goes where you think it will and everyone drives as if they're the only one these far too narrow roads. There's a charm to the place that's haunted me for the past 9 years, a charm that's been calling me back ever since that day, when I was 16 and I saw this town growing ever smaller in the airplane's window. It's nice to be back.

Though I almost didn't make it.

Ulli picked me up yesterday and we headed for the airport with more than enough time for me to make my flight. Then, we hit traffic on I-70. Yes, there was traffic on I-70. It was crazy. Apparently, there'd been a two car accident with fatalities. As a result, they shut down the interstate in both directions so they could clean up. Eventually, some state trooper got really, really briliant and realized that it probably wasn't a good thing to keep people stuck in traffic. Not on a Friday afternoon, not at 3:30p.

After a while, they let people start turning around at one of those emergency U-Turn points and traffic started moving again. Ulli and I found a non-interstate route to the airport and I arrived a little more than 30 minutes before my flight. . .which had been delayed by half an hour.

Perfect, I thought. Yes, I was in time for my plane, BUT I had a 42 minute layover in Dallas that was now cut to 12 mintues. As my father had told me time and time again as he relived the horrors of his traveling consultant days. "Never give yourself less than 30 minutes to make a conection at DFW. ESPECIALLY if it's American to American."

On the plane to DFW I sat next to a nice guy from NOLA. Apparently, this'd happened to him a number of times over the years and he'd figured out the quickest way to get from any point A, to any point B in this airport. I smiled at my good fortune and talked to him for most of our flight down. When we landed and waited for a gate to open up for us, the captain came on the PA and asked if everyone who didn't have to make a connecting flight could please wait for those of us who did have connecting flights to get off the plane before they attempted to deplane, we'd all appreciate it.

Surprise! People actually listened.

My new friend and I hauled ass to the TRAAIN and managed to get to our gate just before they were about to give our seats up to people on standby. Someone, somewhere really wanted me to make it to NOLA.

On the plane I ended up sitting a row in front of Sheriff Lobo, an acquaintance from undergrad who was also on his way down to the wedding. After a few minutes of talking over the seats the guy next to me asks if I'd switch with his wife, who was sitting next to the Sheriff. Word, this trip was getting better all the time.

We landed in NOLA and booked to the Hertz counter, picked up The Grandmastah and the keys to my Grand Prix. This, was going to be fun.

We rolled up on the Welcome Reception for all out of town wedding guests and I was immidiately inundated by old friends. Alphasarah, M, Wanje, Gwinnc, GZ, Notmonochrome and an incredibly happy to see me Nicepersonality were all there. It was like coming home, all over again.

I know I miss being an undergrad. Not in some strange wanting to relive my youth way, but instead realizing that the group of people amassed in that one place at that one time was pretty remarkable. An assortment not likely to be recombined ever again. Here we were, though; older, wiser and all incredibly aware of how special times like these are. We know that the time we have together is precious- so we take advantage of it.

After an hour or so of mingling with the Carls and attempting to get drinks without be stopped by some random person I didn't know who'd seen my nametag and responded with "OH, YOU'RE NENIE! I've heard ALL ABOUT YOUUUU," Aretela and her friend show up to sweep us farther into Uptown. We hit a pretty phatty hotel bar where we sat on the veranda and sucked down drinks while talking about all sorts of randomosity. Eventually, we realized that I hadn't eaten a real meal all day and Wanje needed food, so we progressed to another bar that served food.

A NOLA version of a reuben later we called it a night and headed back to Aretela's for the night. After I dropped him off and had made my way almost all the way to Aretela's- The Grandmastah called me up to tell me he'd been locked out of his hotel room. Could he crash with Aretela?

I went back, picked him up, got lost looking for Aretela's and we eventually got settled in on Aretela's pimp-assed couches. It ws 4am, and it'd been a long, and brilliant day.

There's something about this town, and these people. When you combine brilliance like that. . .yeah. It's a good trip.

Though I really wish Nena were here.

Posted by nenie at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

General Belgrano requested the version of Texas history I told while at the Alamo the other day. Rather than bury it in the comments, I'm gonna put it up here.

Before I start, let me say a few things:
1) I don't hate white people. Corn does, but I don't.
2) I'm playing fast and loose with historical dates at points. But I'm in American studies, we don't DO dates. Just broad themes.

In the begining Moses Austin applied for a land grant from the Spanish government. He wanted to bring a bunch of American families across the Red River and into the, then, Spanish territory of Texas. Eventually, his request was granted by the Mexican government, but he was dead. Moses's son Stephen Austin led 300 families in his father's name, over the Red River and into Mexico.

It was the first part of the 1800s and many of these families believed in the inferiority of anyone browner than them. Very, very quickly it began to chafe at these Anglos that they were being ruled by Mestizos. Their rulers were, by their logic, inferior to them. By 1835 these Anglo settlers could no longer sit idly by and be ruled by this inferior mixed Latin stock. The only choice was to fight for Anglo autonomy in the region.

Let's recap the history of colonialism in the area, shall we?

In the beginning the Spaniards came looking for gold and such. They took over the place from the indigenous folks who were there first, but that's the way these things went at the time.

Over time, the folks that were in the New World chafed under the yoke of Spanish colonial rule, so they revolted and became the nation of Mexico.

The Mexicans let some Anglos (Americans) into their empty border province so that someone could make use of the land, since few were at the time.

The Anglos felt their government to be made of racially inferior individuals so they revolt to take away the land they've been granted by this same racially inferior government.

Everyone with me?

One of the big strategic military posts at the time was San Antonio. The Anglos had it, and the Mexicans needed it back to run any kind of offensive east to the Gulf (Houston) and even north to the Red River. Try as the Mexican army might, they couldn't take the town, so Gen. Santa Anna sent 4000 troops to take San Antonio. At the time, there were only ~200 Anglo men in the area, and when they got wind of the big offensive being planned against them they banded together at the town mission to defend the town.

Though they were outnumbered 20-1, the Anglos held the mission for 13 days. These 13 days bought the Anglo army crucial time to regroup behind the line and pull an end-run counter-offensive that culminated 46 days later in the decisive battle of the war- the Battle of San Jacinto.

Yes, the Anglo men that fought in the battle of the Alamo were hardcore. They took a beating, and stretched out a onesided ass kicking for two weeks so that their forces could regroup behind them. Yes, they bought time with their lives. However, let's look at what they bought time for. They bought time so that there could be Anglo autonomy in the region. They bought time so that Anglos would not be ruled by individuals who were "racially inferior." Which is a different spin than you're likely to hear from the tour guides.

Posted by nenie at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Well, it's official- Nena's moving in with me.

Nena got a job working down here two Fridays ago and she'll be starting in May. Between now and then I'm gonna have to get a storage locker and put my books, loveseat, TV and extra crap into storage to make room for Nena's essentials and much nicer TV and futon. The rest of her stuff is going into storage as well. Cuz my place is really, really tiny.

It seems almost unreal, Nena moving in. We've talked about it and looked forward to it for so long that now that it's actually happening. . .We're both kinda stunned. This has been a long distance relationship of some kind or another since June of 2001. Now, May of 2004 we're going to be back in the same place again. It's just unreal. It probably won't hit me until a a few weeks after she's moved in. She's not going back to Minnesota, she lives here.

Yeah, April's a busy month here in Nenieville. But it's the good kind of busy. And we like that kind of busy.

[nenie's note: This entry was originally completed on 4.6.04 However, Nena's boss- the asshole Dean of Admissions at our fair Alma Mater has been a complete asshole about things.

He ordered Nena not to discuss her leaving with ANYONE. It is yet another in a long series of power plays that have transpired over the past 2 years. He is uncomfortable with any woman in his office having any power and he has treated Nena like shit the entire time she's worked there.

He's always been aware of her value to the office but he's refused to acknowledge that any 25 year old woman could possibly have anything to contribute. Now that she's leaving he's really, really fucked and has spent the past week attempting to fix things so he can seem cool and in control and unbothered by Nena's leaving.

Over the next few weeks I will be venting my slpeen about this asshole Nena's been working for. All of these opinions are totally mine and I take full responsibility for them. None of this is Nena's doing or saying, it's all on me. Alums of our fair Alma Mater, feel free to call me on things, or chime in on this matter.]

Posted by nenie at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I've posted the entries for my trip to San Antonio, they're the three before this one. Read as you will. I still have all those entries from my March trip to New Mexico to put up, but those will probably happen after I go to New Orleans this weekend. The craziness of April continues. One paper down, one to go. Oh, and a wedding. Right.

I spent yesterday beginning to get caught up on work so I can put everything on hold to finish the conference paper I'm presenting a week from today. Yeah, big fun in Nenie-ville.

I'm in decent shape, though. I just need to have a rockstar Monday. Which I think I can have. If I take a shower soon.

Among the cool things going on right now KRLX is online. They've been talking about webcasting KRLX since I was a wee KRLX DJ. Now, it's finally happened. Check it out and love it. It's college radio at its finest. No pretense of anything. Just kidz spinning their favorite records, free of playlists or rotations. Sometimes the music on KRLX rules, sometimes it blows. But it's always kidz spinning what they love. And what could be cooler than hearing music that someone else likes so much they want the world to hear it?

My apartment complex was sold last week as well. The complex next door bought it and they're in the process of "improving" the complex I live in. I'm looking forward to that. My boy Corn lives in the complex next door and his management people seem to be a lot cooler and more responsive than the folks over here. I know it's not the rank and file over here that blow, it's the ownership. I'm therefore glad to see the ownership go. Too bad I'm moving out in July.

At least I get to use the pool that Corn's complex has between now and the wedding, though.

Posted by nenie at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Yknow, maybe I should have stayed in San Antonio.

With a full sized tire in the trunk, I knew I was going to have to exchange Dottie for a new rental. I drove Milton to the airport at 9a and while I was up at the airport I swapped out Dottie for Esmeralda Jones. Esmerelda was a Cavelier just like Dottie, only she was white and had 13k miles on her. She wasn't as cute as little Dottie, but she got the job done.

I tried to go to one last panel, but they all sucked. The one on Bowling for Columbine got off to a terrible start. They opened with the "What a Wonderful World" clip and left the image of the second World Trade Center getting hit up on the screen. A few minutes into the talk someone asked "are you going to leave that up the whole time?" When the reply was "why, is it bothering you?" I knew that this wasn't the panel for me, on a number of levels.

I went to a panel on gender construction in the novels of Nick Hornsby and was disappointed by that one as well. It was straight up literary analysis. It was like being stuck in the most boring lit class ever, where you'd read the best books ever. After the paper on High Fidelity I took off.

On the way out of town, I picked up a shot glass for Gunder, Charlie's March Madness prize (another shot glass) and a present for Nena. The airport was pretty chill until we got on the plane.

We left early because this major storm front was rolling into town. The ascent was bumpy as hell and the sky in Houston didn't look too hot when we landed. We had to book across the entire airport to get to our new gate and along the way we ran across a big statue of President Bush I. I couldn't resist. I ran up to it and gave it a big hug around the waist (my shoulder level). Alabamagrrrl couldn't resist and took a picture of this event, much to the delight of Lilyblack. Yeah, it was fun.

Then we got on the plane.

I got to talking to the nice Puerto Rican woman next to me when we noticed that we hadn't taken off yet. Then the pilot came on the speakers. We were stuck in Houston. This wall of storms that we had escaped in San Antonio was sitting just north of Houston. There was no way through it, the path they'd plotted through a break in the storm was no longer going through a break in the storm. They were trying to find another way around it.

Eventually, they found a way. Go south and west past Laredo into Mexico, and THEN go Northeast to Kansas City. It was the only way around the storm.

I bought a ticket for a 90 minute flight home. The flight took close to 3 hours. No, they didn't offer me another drink or more pretzels.

I drove people home and arrived back home a few minutes ago. All in all, it's been a pretty phenomenal trip. The presentation went really well and I met some cool folks. But I'm still glad to be home. For better or for worse, this place feels like home now. It's funny how a trip can drive that home better than anything else. It's always good to be home.

Posted by nenie at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After Wednesday night's conclusion I figured the rest of my trip had to be much less eventful. Thankfully, I was correct in that estimation.

Thursday was pretty chill. I went to hear some interesting papers and discovered that I could get two hours of free parking with validation at the Rivercenter parking deck. All of the sudden I was heading out every two hours to move the car out of the garage and back into the garage, giving me two more free hours. It was a perfect scam, yo. I would be gone for so little the same parking spot would still be open when I returned. It was great.

As the day wore on I grew to expect the Alamo to be right there in the middle of town. For those who have never been to San Antonio but have been to Chicago, let me give you an analogy that will enable you to grasp how "in the neighborhood" the Alamo is. Alamo:San Antonio::Wrigley Field:Chicago.

Wednesday, we were walking to registration when this BIG adobe wall got in our way. Keeping us from taking the shortest path to the Mariott was this FUCKING ADOBE WALL. I was really annoyed and I remember saying "what the fuck is this adobe wall doing here?" Yeah, that was the Alamo.

On our way back from registering on Wednesday we toured the Alamo really quickly. It's a pretty amazing structure, huge old walls, and all this space. I took some time to explain why the Alamo is significant to folks in my group that didn't quite understand. I'm pretty sure my Latino-centric version of events, however, is in direct opposition with what the tourguides would tell you about the "Chapel of Texas Liberty."

I also now have something in common with Ozzy. We've both urinated in the Alamo. Granted, I did it in the bathroom and he did it ON the Alamo. But still.

I took off a session to head back to the hotel and sit in the hot tub on the roof for a while. That was nice. This conference is turning into a great chance to sit back and relax for a while.

After a few more panels at the conference we went to dinner on the Riverwalk at Casa Rio. They had green chile chicken enchiladas. Not as good as Nena's mom's but still pretty tasty. I dug it. We went back home after dinner and I sat in the hot tub for a while drinking a Woodchuck and trying to totally forget that I was presenting a paper in the morning.

Eventually, 6a came and my alarm clock got me up. I showered, shaved, ordered breakfast, ate got dressed and drove over to the conference.

8a came and it was time to present. The organizers had thrown another guy onto the panel at the last minute and hadn't bothered to tell anyone. That was OK, but the crowd. . .ouch.

I know it was 8a. But the turnout sucked. I know, I know on my CV it's not going to say that no one was at this talk. But still, I was kinda hoping to have more people there.

8 people showed up.

2 were hotel employees that were there to hear the wrestling papers. (They loved my paper, they kept nodding and clapping and laughing. They loved it.) 2 were friends of one of the other panelists, 1 was another panelist's wife and 1 was a friend of mine. This leave 2 people in the audience who came to this panel because they were genuinely interested in the topic.

I ignored this math and soldiered onward. I gave a pretty good talk, methinks and afterwards one of the 2 random attendants came up to me. He's looking for people to write a book on wrestling with him, was I interested in collaborating?

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how many people show up, so long as the right person does.

Flying off this proposition I talked to my other presenters about our research and the state of the industry for a while before we all went our seperate ways. I chilled for a while afterwards and went out for a celebratory lunch with the KU Krew. An afternoon of panels and we took off for dinner at this vegetarian place that'd been advertised at the conference. It was called Mad Dog's and the waitresses outfits can be best described as "British Schoolgirl." The place was the thinking man's Hooters, I tell you. Insane.

The food was decent and after dinner the rest of the Krew took off for the conference and I picked up the car and headed home. Only, I had a flat tire. Poor Dottie. Apparently, I'd blown out the back driver's side tire while rounding a corner on the way to dinner. There'd been a loud explosion, and I'd assumed it to be a really, really hard curbcheck. Only, the tire was blown on the opposite side to the curb. I guess it was just a shitty tire.

I waited for an hour for roadside assistance to come change the tire for me and I sat and watched the crowd.

This town is part of Latin America. It's amazing. I hear Spanish everywhere and I see people that look like me everywhere I go. I'd never thought that these sorts of thing swere important to me. As I age, as I travel, I realize that in some way, on some level: these things matter. I don't want to move here, and I don't want to raise my children here, but there is something beautiful about not being ashamed of speaking to my parents on the phone here. I don't have to hide it, or think I'm proving something by taking to my family in Spanish. I'm not strange here, I don't have to prove my Latin-ness, I'm just another guy on the street.

As I told Nena today- "There are so many brown people here, even the gay people are brown. Everybody's brown. Brown like me."

Eventually I got home and got sucked into the 15 inning Cubs win rather than the hot tub. I turned in at midnight or so. It'd been a good few days. It was time to go home, though. Because as welcoming as this place was. It wasn't home.

Posted by nenie at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Wednesday morning flight out of Kansas City, beginning the long trip to San Antonio. Flight to Houston, switch planes, flight to San Antonio. Fitting that I'm in Houston again the week before Alphasarah's cousin's wedding. She being the reason I was ever in Houston to begin with. But that's a story for another day.

The humidity in Houston is just as I remember it and I was thrilled to be rid of it when the plane took off taking me farther south.

There was something different about this place and I knew it as soon as I stepped off the plane. Walking through the airport, making my way towards the baggage claim. . .there was something different about this town. Out the windows of the plane and now the airport, I could see palms and piñons and cottonwoods. Three trees that just don't go together in my conception of any region's foliage. All around me, as in Houston, I heard Spanish being spoken. But unlike in Houston, the people speaking ths Spanish looked like me.

I met up with Rebecca at baggage claim and we got on the shuttle to pick up my rental car. Freakin' National. I know this is the way the industry works, but it's still pretty shitty to quote me one price and then jack it up $50 when I get to the counter. What the fuck am I going to do? Go someplace else? I should have done that, but alas. . .

The car, however was pretty amusing. Brand new Chevy Cavelier. Sucker was bright red, smelled new and had 230 miles on it. Upon seeing our ride for the first time Milton would christen her Little Dottie Rojo. It was a fitting name, she was a cute car. Too bad Caveliers handle like dumptrucks, on ice, at high speeds.

We got to the hotel pretty quickly and met the proprietor of The Painted Lady Inn. A wonderfully sweet man who runs an amazing little B&B in the middle of San Antonio. You'd seriously miss this place if you weren't looking for it. But it's fabulous. Milton and I were in the Liberace room for the week, while our other friends were in the DaVinci and Warhol rooms, respectively. A brilliant place, yo. I'm totally going to have to go back to San Antonio just to stay there.

We lounged around for a bit and then wandered over to the conference itself. Registration really killed any sense of Latino empowerment that being in this city was causing, however. The organizers of the committee proved their complete and total Anglo ineptness in being unable to decipher my surname. There are two of them, no hyphen. Why is this such a difficult concept for Whitey to grasp? Whatever the razon, every time they needed to find my name at the registration table, they couldn't find me.

"Mr. X? Sorry, no X's here. OH, here you are under Mr. Y."

"So now we need your other registration information. Hrmmm, you're not listed here Mr. Y. You're going to have to get into the complaint line and deal with it."

See, the problem here is that on THIS list I was listed as Mr. X. The stupid professor managing the line was unable to think "Wait, he said he'd be Mr. X on this list and he wasn't. He isn't Mr. Y on this list, so he might be Mr. X." Thankfully, my KU compadres are capable of such higher order thinking and the stupid professor in charge called me back out of the complaint line to give me my registration packet. No apology however, for messing up my name.

We wandered the Riverwalk after registration and headed home to get ready for our cookout up on the roof that night.

Once the rest of our group returned from the conference we jumped in Dottie and drove off to buy food for our gigantic BBQ up on the roof. It took us entirely too long to wander through the H.E.B. but it was a revelation to entirely too many of us. We did get out of there in one piece, though and back home where the grill had been started up for us. I started grilling immediately since it was 8p or somesuch by the time we got home.

Time passed and we gorged on chips and the fresh salsas we'd bought at the market. I went to flip the burgers and chicken only to find that no cooking had actually transpired. We called down to tell them that the grill wasn't working and waited for someone to cume up to fix it.

We waited for 20 mins or so and eventually the owner came up. He took one look at the grill and noticed the pilot light was off, so he relit it.

BOOM!

An enormous fireball came flying out of the grill, knocking the cover open and sending all the grill tools on the table next to the grill into orbit. It was an amazing site that should have done a lot more damage than it did.

That was scary.

The food never did get cooked. Even after this episode, with the grill working, cooking never really happened. At 11p I packed it in for the night. Confident that the rest of the trip couldn't be as eventful as this first day had been.

Posted by nenie at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big ups to the University of Connecticut Huskies on their 2004 National Title. Bigger ups to Charlie for winning Nenie.net March Madness 2KQuattro. Charlie's prize will be something fabulous that I'll pick up for him in San Antonio.

I'm leaving for San Antonio bright and early tomorrow morning . I'm presenting a paper entitled "Wrestling With the Rules: The Cosmology of the WWE" at this year's meeting of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. I'm looking forward to the trip. There are 7 of us from KU making the trip down to Texas for the conference and our B&B has a hot tub on the roof. And yes, I'm a touch nervous, but not much, about presenting. I have confidence in the paper and have gotten a pretty positive reception from folks in my dry runs of the talk.

April is rapidly turning into my busy month. I'll be gone until Saturday night and upon my return I'll have to catch up on work and then rush back out to New Orleans on the following Saturday. Alphasarah's cousin is getting married and so there will be much rejoicing. In addition to the wedding it'll be nice chance to see Alphasarah and M who I haven't seen in ages. I think the last time I saw them was when I was a senior at Carleton. And that's just not right.

I'll also see the Grandmastah, Wanje and Aretela all of whom it'll be wonderful to see. But I've seen them in the past few months. Well, Wanje's been a touch longer than GMS or Aretela, but still. Big times in NOLA. Too bad I have to rush back to L-Town to present another paper at another conference.

Up, big fun on the horizon. But before I get to all that, I have to shower and go to class, organize my MA Exam Committee, hold office hours, polish this paper, print a bazillion copies of said paper and finally sit in on AMS 110 so that I'll be knowledgeable about what was discussed when I return from San Antonio. WHOO!

ETA: Notmonochrome and Nicepersonality are gonna be in NOLA for the wedding as well. WHOO! This trip is getting better all the time, yo. If I'd known at press time they were gonna be there, they'd've been included in the shout outs.

Posted by nenie at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

"I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come, the season has begun!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a baseball, and he was given a crown of blue wool, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come, the ivy is green!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to strike men out as if they were children, to throw with such speed and accuracy as to make men question his mortality.

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come, for I have returned home after a long journey!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding the weight of a nation's expectations. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "I have come home to undo the sins of my forebares. We shall never forget, we shall never look back, the future is ours to claim."

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come, my bait is prepared" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Sosa, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over the Major Leagues, these four riders; Prior, Wood, Maddux and Sosa. Woe will befall any who stand in their path, for they shall bring to us, the End of Days."

Let baseball season begin. My soul is prepared, how's yours?

161 games ahead, nothing behind. Can the Cubs do it? Are the End Times here? I don't know, but I'm intrigued to find out. I love baseball season, I'm glad it's finally here.

Go Cubs.

Posted by nenie at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)