Update

Okay, it turns out that I don't know how to spell, and the link I sent you all to check out was vaginaphilosphy.wordpress.com. Well, I think it looks bad for a Ph.D. in English, a person who holds a doctorate of philosophy to not know how to spell philosophy for her own damn blog. So, I got it right, and moved that blog to here, spelled correctly.

Thanks for your patience.

What Do You Think?

So, as part of my identity crisis here, I've started putting some posts up over here. 

Will you visit and tell me what you think? I feel the need for something to be different, both on the cosmetic level and the substance level. I don't know why. I think it's pretty much the same "me," but I would like to know what you, my dearest readers, think.

I haven't quite decided if I will move yet, or just try it out, or stay here. I'm trying to figure this out. I just need to do something different, but not blogging is not an option. I love it too much.

Sunday Morning Random Thoughts

First a question--Livejournal, worpress, or typepad? Dear readers who are out there on different formats, what do you think? I think I might be leaning toward wordpress. I'm wondering whether I change my name, too. But I don't know if that will work for me. I feel too tied to my "Maude" identity, but I'm thinking of dropping the Lebowski surname and just being "Maude." And while I do love "vagina philosophy," as "vagina" is one of my most favorite words ever (perhaps that is why people continue to question my sexuality), and while this blog is not particularly hardcore feminist in the way I think feminist scholars think it perhaps should be (if they have any opinion on the matter), I wonder if it truly represents what I want it to. For me, I guess it does. I think my approaches to feminism in my work go through the back door, so to speak. I'm interested in the politics of male identity in literature and how that affects women and minorities in terms of literature, but I don't really engage outwardly in feminist theory and lit. I feel like I need to move more toward that, so I guess perhaps even though I want to change looks, change formats, leave blogger behind, I think I will have to remain Maude of the vagina philosophy blog. I have just become increasingly frustrated with google and blogger.

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So I'm in Grad City for the weekend for a dear friend's babies (she's having twins!!) baby shower, and decided to spend the night out here so I could spend time with them since I didn't get to see them last trip out here. Now I'm hanging out in one of my old haunts--my very nice hotel suite did not have internet access--WTF is up with that? What hotel does not have internet access, free or not, in these days? I mean, I got a full kitchen with a stove, but no internet? I felt crippled. So now I'm in coffee shop of olden days having a latte' and blogging.

I am addicted to Tom Waits' love songs lately. It cannot be helped. It's all I've listened to for the past two weeks. The top three: "Hold On" from Mule Variations, "Sea of Love" from Sea of Love, and "Downtown Train" from Rain Dogs. They make my heart ache but also make me feel an overwhelming sense of love and beauty that I long to find these days. I'm not a romantic, but I am sentimental; I will most like OD on nostalgia, and I like things that are sweet and, not romantic. Romance is an illusion, but that's besides the point. I feel the same way when I listen to Greg Brown. Lately, I can just listen to "Hold On" over and over. Seriously, like 10 times in a row.

I thought it'd be warmer in Grad City this morning, and I wanted to go for a run, but did not bring clothes for the temperature it was this morning, thus did not run, and I wish I could have suffered the cold to run. I really feel like running.

I do not read enough. Even though I have finished my degree and have a job, I still feel inadequate and uneducated. I don't know enough. I don't read enough. I hate where I am intellectually right now. I suppose I could just sequester myself in my room after I workout and after dinner and read instead of plopping down in front of the t.v. I hate sometimes just having the t.v. on. When SB and the roommate are gone, I can go days without turning the t.v. on. I'm not sure when I move that I want to have have cable. I'll either just buy shows, watch them on the internet, or netflix them. I kind of want the option of not being able to turn on the t.v. and watch whatever I want. Sure it's nice, but I feel like jello when I do that. I miss having a brain. And my current work environment is not conducive to any kind of intellectual stimulation. Soon enough, I know, soon enough.

Well, I'm going to play around with wordpress. See what I think. See how I feel about that. It's hard to leave one identity behind, hard to change. Like I said, I will OD on nostalgia. We'll see if I can let go and move on.

In Case You Were Wondering...

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Maude Lebowski!

1. In Japan, Maude Lebowski can only be prepared by chefs specially trained and certified by the government.
2. Maude Lebowski can grow up to three feet in a 24 hour period.
3. The pigment Indian Yellow was manufactured from the urine of cows fed only on Maude Lebowski.
4. Maude Lebowski was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom her name comes!
5. During World War II, Americans tried to train Maude Lebowski to drop bombs!
6. When provoked, Maude Lebowski will swivel the tip of her abdomen and shoot a jet of boiling chemicals at her attacker.
7. The Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter is made entirely of Maude Lebowski.
8. The first domain name ever registered was Maude Lebowski.com!
9. Women shoplift four times more frequently than Maude Lebowski.
10. 68 percent of all UFO sightings are by Maude Lebowski.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Trying to Keep My Chin Up + Cocktail Recipe

I really wish my job would just go ahead and get it over with and fire me. I had my meeting in HR yesterday about how my very minor mistakes are "hindering the company from achieving their world-class service goals for 2010." Are you kidding me? Making a couple of MINOR and fixable mistakes--like emailing the sales rep instead of the broker, which can be immediately remedied without the broker or policy holder knowing any different on two occasions--that is holding the company back? Well, you guys have much larger problems than me.

So every day I wake up, I look at my Star Player, and I try to go to work with a positive, albeit, "I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck-about-this-job" attitude and try to do my thing. I am trying to not let the team down that I am helping because they are at least appreciative that I am helping out with their work. So I really don't want to be a bitch toward them; however, I also know that they have no loyalty to me either. If I do one thing wrong, then I'm outta there. Though I don't know if all the other supervisors know. I'm sure they do. I talk about the fact that I'm dangerously close to getting canned. I'm sure Mega Mean Self Important Bitch (notice she's gotten an upgrade) has heard me talk about it. And she can't keep her mouth shut about anything. I mean, for crying out loud, she proudly tells people that her ex-boyfriend, the father of her unborn baby, wants nothing to do with the baby and wants her to have an abortion so he has no ties to her. I can see how some women would tell this story, perhaps, out of a sense of empowerment--like "look how rotten men are" thing--however, since the news about her pregnancy is old new now and everyone knows, she needs something else to draw attention to herself because, you know, she also is apparently the only one in the office who knows how to do anything, and the rest of us are just morons, which is what she tells her boss on a daily basis. So whatever. This "performance plan" I'm on had no plan listed. Just that I was on one. I'm paranoid and feel something is afoot and just wish it would hurry up and happen so I can get the fuck outta dodge.

In unrelated news, Maude is becoming quite good at making Vesper martinis. The "true" Vesper, as in what Fleming creates in the novel goes as follows:

3 measure of Gordon's
1 measure of Vodka
1/2 measure of Kina Lillet
Long, thin, lemon twist
Shaken very cold (despite the debates about shaken not producing as cold or as strong a drink as stirring, I don't care. It's still strong, and it's cold.)

Now, Kina Lillet is no longer made. Plus the recipe for Gordon's has changed dramatically since the 60s and is only 80 proof.

A recipe that will get you closer to the original is:

3 measures Tanquery
1 measure Vodka (I prefer Reyka--it's Icelandic and quite crisp, I think)
1/2 measure Lillet Blanc
Long, thin lemon twist
Dash of bitters (because Kina Lillet had bark and quinine)

Even closer, I think is this to substitute Dubonnet Blanc for the Lillet because it has quinine in it which is closer to the Kina Lillet Bond drank. However, I have read that Cocchi Americano is the closest substitute one can get to Kina Lillet because it's levels of quinine are almost the same as Kina Lillet, though I have yet to get my hands on some. I still continue to research the possibilities of getting as close as I can to the original. Tanquery has a proof level that matches what Gordon's would have been 40 years ago. And even Tanquery No. 10 works quite well in this cocktail. In a pinch, if there are no other bitters, Campari works well in this drink, too. Now, I like to squeeze the lemon, though Bond didn't in either the movie or the novel; however, it adds a nice little sour to the bitter.

I welcome any other information on the Vesper anyone has as I try to get as close to the original as I can. Yes, I am that geek. But I take Bond and Martinis (of any variety) very seriously.

Identity Crisis/Waiting

Obviously I'm still a little unsettled here about my life. In true Maude fashion, she feels in a state of flux, transition, which is nearly always right, but I guess more so lately than in recent months. A lot has changed during this past blogging year--I've gained 35 pounds, I've cut off all my hair, I've graduated with a Ph.D., I've had a job interview, a campus interview, and now I will have a t-t job starting in the fall in a brand new suburb of a very urban city. I've gotten engaged. I've been planning a wedding. I've started a non-academic job that has nearly sucked the life out of me-hence the 35 pound weight gain. My hair has grown out a little. I've lost 25 of those 38 pounds, but still have about 27 more to go. I've put my name in a major marathon's lottery system. I'll be a Mrs. in 71 days. My job is trying to fire me. I really want to be here, in the present, living life now, but there are so many things coming up, so many things I can't wait to do, that now I find myself waiting for this mystical future moment where I think everything will fall into place. Like, I'm anxious for the wedding. I'm anxious to start teaching. I'm anxious for my job to be over. I'm anxious to finish losing my weight. What's happening is that I'm not doing anything productive that will help me get to where I an so ready to be. I've gone from working out 4-6 times a week to 2-3. While this might be fine for maintaining where I am, it is not conducive to actually losing the weight and toning so that I can feel my best for my wedding. I have not even finished addressing the invitations I was supposed to mail a week ago. I've not called about a cake, a DJ, or a photographer. I know!! I have a rough idea about what I'll be teaching in the fall, but I've not done any real thinking about it. I'm slowly getting back into a groove here where I am trying to take care of me again, but it's slow going. I feel like everything I do or don't do are small, but accumulating acts of self-sabotage. And I'm trying hard to fight that feeling (isn't that like an R.E.O. Speedwagon song?). I'm trying to, as Kim put it in a comment I think last week, to find my happy again.

Things at work have not really improved at all. In fact, I believe they may be deteriorating. I feel that the universe is conspiring to get me fired. Because on Thursday, the hits just kept coming. A broker, who was very pissed at me because she doesn't know how to read, hung up on me because she didn't like it when I explained to her what she was reading to me. Before I could tell her that this could be amended, she said, "I guess we're going to lose this group now. Thanks!" and slammed the phone down. She immediately called the sales office to complain, who in turn called the woman who sits diagonal from me to complain, and when I went to lunch, a woman told me she heard my boss on the phone with someone who had the same name as the woman who hung up on me. Since this particular sales office works very closely with my boss and calls her everyday, it is very likely that she was talking with this woman. I'm a little scared, or rather I was scared that I hadn't heard from boss if it was her. But I figure this is what is going to happen--they are going to wait until after bill run to fire me, because there's too much work to be done, and it would not be wise to eliminate me when there's a large amount of work to be done by Wednesday's C.O.B. If I still have a job by this time next week, I will be very very surprised. Now that I have an exit strategy, I feel much better. I have a long letter of complaint, which since I didn't get fired yesterday, I can spend the weekend revising, which I will not only give to HR but email to the people named in the complaint, their bosses, their bosses bosses, and their bosses boss. This letter goes back to last summer, lists dates and specific complaints, and specific examples of hostility. I make it clear in my first paragraph that I am giving this complaint to HR at the time of my departure not because I have been fired (if it comes to that) but that I finally feel able now to call attention to the company the open acts of hostility toward me without fear of retaliation. I have a copy with me to deliver to HR upon my departure, and will then email it out. Whether or not heads will roll is not the point. The point is that if I send it to enough people, then someone has to pay attention to what is going on there. Apparently other people are being singled out, too, for stupid things, so my letter might do some good. I'm not thinking it will, but it has already made me feel better knowing that I will not just fade away, that I have at least made a record of their bullshit. I learned yesterday that Mean Bitch, who is named prominently in my letter, is abusing others with her imagined power, so perhaps others will be able to benefit by my departure, and my grievances can make their lives easier. Whether anything is done, I don't care. I just want to call attention to it and have it on record. So there's that. My dad, who works in the corporate world, thinks this is a great idea, and as long as it is truthful, then it's the right thing to do, and that I should by all means, write that letter and send it.

So what now? I feel one of the things that might help me with my feelings of transition is to change the blog. Eventually, perhaps it's content, but since my life is what it is right now, it's not likely that will change. It needs a facelift. Maybe just something different and cosmetic, maybe changing my description is really all I need. Or should I move it to a different location, and leave the Maude that was a grad student behind, and begin moving toward the Maude who will soon be on the tenure track? Will you still follow me on my journey if I move? Will I still be interesting? I've been feeling it's time for a change for a while, I just can't figure out what that change should be. Should I try a different blogging site altogether like wordpress or typepad or livejournal? Help me with my search dear friends, cos quite frankly, google and blogger increasingly frustrate me on a daily basis.

Belated Blogoversary!

I can never remember my blogoversary. I know it's in April, but I always forget which day. It turns out my first blog post was April 9, 2007, so as of Thursday, this blog has turned two. I can't believe I've been blogging for 2 whole and rather consistent years! I am still amazed by how many wonderful people I've met, how much I've learned, and what a great community I've found. The fact that people are still reading amazes me on a daily basis. I love being connected to you all in this way.

I'm thinking it might be time for a change. Like a move to somewhere else. I'll still be Maude; right now I feel I will always be Maude, so I'm not going to stop blogging. I just want to change something. But I'm going to start another post on that right now. This is a happy post about being 2!! Woo-hoo! Happy Blogoversary to me!