It is What it Is

Welcome to 1984 (and Not in a Good, Footloose-is-Back-on-Top-of-the-Charts Kind of Way)

Sometimes I worry that I could easily become a conspiracy nut. (I realize that most people probably don’t have this on their list of concerns, but my worry list has always been longer, and stranger, than most.) I blame some of it on the fact that I spent most of my childhood watching soap operas, Phil Donahue and Unsolved Mysteries. There was even a brief – and unfortunate – period when I believed that Elvis faked his own death.

And despite what my occasionally rational brain tells me about accidents and coincidence, I think I’ve watched far too many political thrillers as an adult, too. (I still find it odd that one of the most liberal members of the Senate, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash shortly before some key votes under the Bush administration, but I try to keep this mostly to myself.)

However, I do not think I’m paranoid when I say that we are, at present, on the verge of living in the world created by George Orwell in 1984. But, it’s not big government we need to be afraid of -– it’s Facebook.

Even without the latest issues Facebook has had with privacy, revealing information to other web sources, etc., social networking has always had the potential to implement a kind of social control that no invading army or government entity is capable of. And the key to that societal control rests entirely in surveillance.

For an anthropology class nearly a decade ago (when I sat down on the first day and saw that half the room was full of athletes, I knew I’d found a good place to be), I read a book called Depraved and Disorderly. It’s a study of women in penal colonies in Australia (aka, the founding women of Australia), and for the large part, the book discusses how constant surveillance and the removal of all privacy was used to turn these “wild women” into the model citizens the English government wanted them to be at the time.

Not What I Wanted to Hear From Paula Deen*

Last week, the SO and I had to make an impromptu visit to Savannah, Georgia for some family matters. Between both of our work schedules, we also knew that we'd probably get to spend less than 24 hours in town.

After the SO price-lined our hotel (one of his favorite activities), I jumped on the web link he sent me to check out the amenities we would be enjoying in the 14 hours between check-in and check-out. Of course, there was your standard pool, restaurants and fitness center, but what immediately caught my eye was the advertised proximity of Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons Restaurant.

I like to think that Paula and I have a lot in common, and the short list includes a love of butter, cheese, cheese grits and deep frying.

Knowing that we were going to be cutting it close by rolling into Savannah just around 9:00 p.m., I asked the SO to call and see if we might make a reservation for the last seating. I also figured that even if they were booked, there would hopefully be a bar where we might be able to find open seats and order dinner.

The he broke the news to me: "They only take reservations for parties of 10 or me. I'm sorry."

The Dead Fowl Standard

Right after college, my roommates and I moved into a brand-new federal style townhouse off of the U Street Corridor in Washington, D.C. It was only a few blocks from Adam's Morgan, but at the time, the neighborhood was still considered very much "up and coming." (Today, the same area is mostly luxury condos and high-end retail, but that was not the case in 2001.)

I, however, could not have been more infatuated with my living situation. The house had gorgeous hardwood floors, a lovely balcony and even a garage. (You have no idea the premium on something like that in D.C.) I also had the master bedroom complete with two closets and a bathroom that had a shower and a whirlpool tub. The $825 I paid each month in rent was way too high a percentage of my salary, but it was comparable with what all of my friends paid, and I had a spectacular house two blocks from the Metro station. I was more than willing to put up with the occasional panhandling or "get out white bastards" greeting in exchange.

But, while I was completely comfortable with my surroundings, I sometimes forgot to warn visiting friends that we weren't in Georgetown anymore. (For those of you who have never been, Georgetown is a very wealthy neighborhood, and you can tell at every turn -- from the gorgeous row houses to the Armani store.)

Heathens and Happy Hernando

A few weeks ago, the SO and I took a trip to DeSoto Caverns outside of Childersburg, Alabama. (I like to do really cheesy things, and the SO likes to take pictures, and amazingly, these two interests often coincide.)

For those of you who don't know, DeSoto Caverns is the country's first recorded cave (I don't know what this honor means either), and it's a rather amazing natural phenomenon full of stalactites, stalagmites and the like. (By "the like," I mean stuff I didn't bother to pay attention to in either science class or the guided tour.)

The good people who own the cave have seen fit to fill the area around it with attractions like panning for gemstones, a maze and water gun shooting forts. The attractions are pretty fun, and a good way to drive up the price of admission. Of course, rock candy and fudge are for sale in the gift shop, too.

The SO and I had a good time. We engaged in some archery. (I say we didn't keep score. The SO claims victory.) I fed some llamas, and of course, there was the panning for gemstones, maze-running (that I did kick ass at) and cave-touring. But, there were two rather troublesome aspects to the whole adventure.

1. The mascot for DeSoto Caverns is Happy Hernando. Now, while I have no problem with lying to children in some respects -- the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, "Of course Mom and Dad never smoked pot" -- I have my limits. And turning Hernando DeSoto into Happy Hernando, the cutest of the conquistadors, just seems wrong. After all, we're talking about a man known for his cruelty in wiping out and enslaving indigenous peoples wherever he went. Dressing him in all primary colors and adding a jaunty hat doesn't seem like enough to whitewash that past. 

From the Archives: Laurel and Annie Travel the World

Well, as we boarded the minibus bound from Pattaya to Bangkok, Annie found a large knot on her foot. It's probably some disease caused by the lizard that shared our tropical hell hotel room for a couple of days, but she took an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory right after the discovery, and we think she's going to make it.

She's a brave soul.

I think Annie and I have never been so happy to leave a place as when we left Bangkok. We were on an Air France flight and thanks to my high school French teacher always calling Air France "Air Chance," my anxiety level was a little high.

I was about to have my faith in the French restored merely by the presence of personal TV screens at your seat until we encountered the meanest French stewardess ever. She was downright scary, and I'm glad I got to sleep through most of the flight.

I did watch a nice French film as I tried to remain cultured despite the fact that my taste has been seriously deteriorating since we left the U.S. This is primarily due to the fact that every English-speaking program shown abroad sucks. Annie and I actually looked forward to seeing Yes Dear at our hotel in Pattaya. We also loved Sorority Boys . All sad but true.

Of course, my attempts to culture myself went awry when Annie convinced me to watch Kangaroo Jack after the French film. If I come home only interested in CBS and UPN programs, I'm sorry.

Serious Friday: The Media and Me

I have always considered myself a writer first.  

It’s not that I have a problem with the term “journalist,” it’s just that I knew I could never be one. Even in all my years in magazines, I always referred to what I did as Lifestyles journalism. It was the fluff of the world – plan your next vacation, how to spruce up your mood with color, what to plant when. Mostly, I was the queen of lists. If you needed a top (fill in number here), I was your girl. At last count, I believe I had written over 100 top lists of some sort (not including my five or the movies that always make me cry). I preferred it that way.  

I briefly considered real journalism. For awhile, I thought I wanted to run the school newspaper, but Gabrielle Carteris’ rather unflattering role as Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210 made me question that dream. (Truthfully, I was not confident enough about my writing to think I could earn any place on any newspaper then.)  

My Jury Duty Story Can Beat Your Jury Duty Story

The first and (knock on wood) only time I’ve ever been called for jury duty, I was in my second year of graduate school. Believe it or not, I think jury duty is part of one’s civic duty and one of the responsibilities that comes with having the world’s greatest, though not perfect, judicial system. It’s also one of the two excused absences at UAB (the other being military service), so I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about flack from any of my professors.  

That Monday, I packed a couple of books in my purse and headed down to the courthouse fairly sure that despite my willingness to serve, my status as a grad student and the fact that I was a lawyer’s daughter would keep me off any jury.  

I found a seat in the large room where the few hundred people called for jury duty that week waited and started to read. (I quickly learned that no matter how deep I buried my nose in a book, some elderly person would insist on having a conversation at me. Yes, at, not with.) When the first foreman entered the room and called my juror number, I was relieved to get away from the crowd and my seat neighbor.

More on Me and the Pole

For those of you anxiously awaiting an update on the Pole Yourself Thin/Stripper Aerobics class, here it comes:

1. I cannot wear shorts or skirts because there are bruises that run from my feet all the way up my thighs. I have bruises on my biceps and forearms. If the SO didn't look like such a sweetheart, I worry people would assume he's been beating me. Maybe the near-translucently-pale aren't meant for this line of work. Maybe someone should invent a foam floor. It could be like that memory foam mattress stuff. I'm just saying ... I'd want one even if I wasn't into pole dancing. It just sounds so pleasant.

2. My upper body has no desire to support the weight of my lower body whatsoever. There's a move called the "cartwheel" in which you use your arms to pull your legs up and over to the other side of the pole. My feet want to stay planted just where they are, and my arms want it that way, too. Neither half is willing to give, and neither half listens to a single message sent by my brain.