All posts by EnglishNerd

A born nerd specializing in English, which currently includes gaining a better understanding of how the field of Education intersects with the discipline of English.

Zulie!

Green Water Dragon lizard, Zulie, in a plant appearing to hold a leaf in front of face.

This is my adorable Water Dragon. I picked him up from PetCo with a note that said he wasn’t completely to breed standard in a hand (paw? I’ve never been able to remember) or tail. The employee didn’t remember and I don’t know. He’s currently very sick, so he’s stressing me out. He’s why I’ll be up and out the door before 8am basically every day this week. Totally worth it as he’s already seeming a bit better.

Wrote this first part at the beginning of him being sick in Oct 3. He rallied and then he died Oct. 5. Miss him terribly.

Freak Power Exhibit at Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

9 political posters from the 1970s on an angled wall to lead visitors into the exhibit space. Facing the posters is an enlarged reprint of a newspaper page. The headline is at the ceiling and reads "Scurrilous Sheet Hits the Streets". There is a image of writer Hunter S. Thompson and another man holding a poster. Past all of these images is a portrait of Hunter S. Thompson that wraps onto the back wall leading into the rest of the exhibit space.
Selection of art from the Hunter S. Thompson’s run for Sheriff in

The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History has a fantastic show of political posters from the Freak Power Party. The displays over several rooms tell the fascinating story of Hunter S. Thompson‘s run for Aspen Sheriff in 1970. It includes great background on the history of the time and all the ways people were working for a better and more just world. It resonates with what is happening now because the more things change the more they stay the same. I wish they had some of the political posters in the show as prints or stickers to being home since they voiced what I think now.

It runs until the end of the month and is definitely worth the trip. Darrin and I planned a whole weekend in Santa Cruz to see the show, and it was a great decision!

Well Hello!

It has been a minute, and it has been something…..life? So many changes and so many lessons, and finally getting this site back up and ready to run again! Security has been updated, new posts will be coming soon, and hopefully more good adventures.

Adventures seem like a ridiculous hope to have today as women in most of the US are learning (many not for the first time) that we are less that fully human and worthy of the life that we want. My thoughts are still coalescing, and many perspectives and stories need space before I will have a post on the Supreme Court ruling today. My foundational belief is that people with uteruses* deserve access to the healthcare their healthcare providers deem best and other people shouldn’t interfere.

I’ll get around to posting life updates later because there is a lot to update. But for now, I’m happy to have figured out with the webserver host’s help how to address the security issues my poor neglected site to transform it into a cared for, functional site.

*Is that the plural or is it with an i? Oh! Just checked Merriam Webster and “es” a correct variation on the plural!

Saying goodbye

Pets have the funniest ways to weave themselves into the fabric of Normal Existence. Amelia was no different, though her place was both larger and smaller than everyone else in the apartment. All of the things she’s left behind fill a storage tub.

An African Pygmy Hedgehog, she was a perfect excuse to keep the apartment heated closer to my desires because the cold could have her trying to hibernate. A night animal that could take or leave high levels of interaction, she was the perfect companion for late night writing sessions. 

Caring for her was a constant level of mindfulness without being overly high maintenance. She was pretty good at letting me know what actions were annoying through a variety of huffing sounds and actions. Until the end. And then there was no warning. Now all I have are pictures and memories. 

Thank you little pet for 5 1/2 years. They were too fast. Goodbye, Amelia.


Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Arkham Asylum was an interesting look into what marks insane. I appreciated the acceptance of insanity as part of a person – a characteristic to learn to live with rather than erasing. Two Face lost a part of his connection with the world in a treatment that didn’t fully understand the root cause of his compulsion.
I love that Batman must face Bruce’s fears in order to maintain his sanity and save the day. 

Dave McKean’s art is phenomenal and adds an essential layer to the story. I picked the story up for the art, and it tells the story more than the words do in some parts.
It’s a story that relies on symbols to discuss the symbology of sanity, and it does that extraordinarily well! 

Here is a review by Chandra: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2023279156

Modern fairytales

Maybe it was a clip of the current US Attorney General in all of his Puck-ishness. Or perhaps it was my full avoidance of a terrifyingly massive project that I needed to have finished months ago. Whatever the catalyst, I had a stray thought about what constitutes a Modern Fairytale. 

If we think of fairytales as a type of story we tell ourselves to make sense of a ridiculous and nonsensical world, what are those stories today?

I know the big trend is to re-tell the old stories we know with “updates” to more closely connect to our current lived realities. And these are a way to try to make sense of the world. But the best known tales reflect a smaller portion of the mass society, and they’re still rooted in a lived reality we are generations distant from with all the erasure that makes up the predominate values.

And I think, like the countries and communities and cultures that we palimnsest to create the current US culture, we’re still collectively creating our fairytales.

I am…

Landing in Los Angeles

I am a walking citation
of words and ideas that were not mine to begin with
picked up along the way like shells along the ocean
my mutiplex of words are best understood as a portmanteau
of all I’ve read
or watched
or heard
or lived.

I live on the internet – not quite enmeshed, not quite detached
a conglomeration of bickering ideas
shouted through a cacophonous  imaginary garden
– it’s the planet that anchors me to this world.

My eyes change color.
Some days they see the past
Other days they see the future.
When they’re blue they see the composite of connections of my life.

I was given a name that fits
in its confounding of expectations
and connects me to places I’ve never been
but would like to visit.

My first question was never spoken
though I speak it still
“Is this right?”

I wrestle with the discomfort
of never quite fitting
of being a quarter-beat off
of refusing others’ boxes.

I am becoming comfortable as just myself.

Art interpretation for data collection

May Day

The above poster is from a calendar the professor of my Arts Based Research brought in. It is a 12inx12in poster, any my scanner is around 8 1/2inx11in, so the image is a little wonky. But the important elements are there.

As I mentioned in class, I picked this poster, because I love the imagery that references traditional Western European fertility celebrations surrounding the first of May, while simultaneously referencing the Haymarket Massacre, and the Occupy Movement.

What I didn’t mention in class, because I felt like it would require too much additional outside knowledge, what that I also picked it because it reminded me of Molly Crabapple‘s art.

We discussed how the explanations of the art could be used as a means of data collection, as each of us interpreted the various pictures we held.

As I think about the final project for this class, I find myself with too many questions and too many artistic aspects that I want to investigate and play with. But I keep thinking of the #29DaysofBlackCosplay on Twitter, and Laurenn McCubbin‘s work she discussed during the 2015 DragonCon.