I've got a topic in mind, but no time to blog-it.

Filo's at the groomers, so here's a pic to fill in the sad, quiet loneliness. I'll have to eat my lunch without a pair of eyes staring and pleading for carrot sticks (sigh).

By the way, America lost 0-1. This season, being an America fan is much like being a Miner fan.

Believe...

As an undergrad at UTEP, I never went to an athletic event or even had much school spirit. Actually, no, I went to one football game with extremely low attendance due to drizzly weather and a suck-y football team. After reaching a good beer buzz, we finally made it to the game, sat behind the band, and make fun of them. But no basketball games.

G. grew up with a different sense of UTEP spirit. His dad loves UTEP basketball. They regularly attended home games and reveled in seeing Tim Hardaway, Antonio Davis, and Greg Foster play for UTEP, all of whom later played for the NBA (so I'm told; I, of course, knew none of this).

Since returning to El Paso, I've picked up a bit more UTEP spirit, especially around basketball season, from G. and his dad (and his sisters, too--it's a family thing). Not enough to get me regularly to the games, but enough to understand how tough it is to be UTEP Miner fan.

To be a Miner fan, you must prepare to be disappointed about 60% of the time (depending on the sport)-this encompasses the Lows: the inexplicable mistakes, the near wins, the injuries, watching once promising records falter. The other 40% is blissful excitement and the entire city bursts with Miner pride. This 40% is attained through much nail-biting and suspense--the important games are never won with a comfortable margin; nope, every second, every move counts. It feels like the players have to win the hard way. To be a UTEP Miner fan, you are asked to follow the team through the many struggles, you have to believe they will pull through at the last moment. It may sound cheesy, it may just be the result of a very effective marketing campaign, but that one word--believe--emerges as the perfect catchphrase for UTEP athletics.

"Believe" is the best word for UTEP, its fans, even El Paso. UTEP's reputation is not as well-known or as highly regarded as that other UT school, nor do its players ooze with superstar, uber talent of the big athletic programs. Likewise, El Paso has a bad reputation. The city recently got national media attention for being one of the sweatiest, fattest, most illiterate & inebriated cities in the nation (TOTALLY not true). To be asked to believe that UTEP and the city can rise above these kinds of tags is mighty powerful. And they do believe. And it makes me love El Paso.

Last night, Miners pick up gritty win and held on to a chance to enter NCAA championship play.
Glory Road, the movie that chronicles the 1966 NCAA victory of Texas Western College (UTEP's former name) is more evidence that UTEP athletes have always been scrappy. I won't go into the specifics of the movie; all I will say is check your local movie listings and watch it immediately.

And, lastly, today is the Clasico de Clasicos, the big game between Guadalajara Chivas (boo, hiss) and Club America (vamos, aguilas!!). I'm taking UTEP's win last night as a good sign that the sports gods are on my side this weekend. Final Score: America 2, Chivas, 1.

So far today, I've done everything besides grading exams--even exercise (!!).

I'm home alone tonight. G. went to see the UTEP/Rice basketball game. I could have gone, too, of course, but just didn't feel like it. I haven't "felt" like doing a lot of stuff, from reading to blogging, grading, tidying up, watching movies, emailing, talking on the phone, crossing things off my growing To-Do list. All of this inactivity is making me feel pretty slummy.

G. tried to figure out what's troubling me over breakfast this morning. I can be really difficult and moody and supersensitive, yet G. has figured out how to draw me out without seeming pushy. He can diffuse the grumpy and soothe me. It's one of the reasons why I love him so much. He brings me closer to feeling normal.

In other news, with the purchase of a hair straightening iron, I am officially "high maintenance." Over the years, my make-up collection and cleansing routine has expanded to include multiple steps (ALL of which are absolutely necessary, of course), and we can't forget The Regimen either. I don't know if I like this new designation--more steps means more time, and forget about packing "light" for a trip. There's something fussy about "high maintenance," something that doesn't seem me.

Oh, but who am I really?

I'll Kill You

Meet Filomena's mortal enemy...

Editorial Meeting

A Tale of Three Talk Shows

G. and I had dinner with his family last night to celebrate birthday, anniversary, and induction into an honor society. It was a nice atmosphere, very Italian restaurant-ish. The only speedbumb was the fact that our waitress sent half our order for take-out, delaying our meal about an hour and a half. In the meanwhile, we ate lots of bread and I drank a little too much chianti on an empty stomach. To top it all off, my meal wasn't that great. But the conversation was quite lively, which brings me to the subject of this post.

For some reason, we got on the topic of Oprah. Oprah was universally panned for turning her show into an Oprah-fest no matter what the day's topic. Dave Chappelle is on? Oprah talks about herself. Actually, she manages to talk about herself all the damn time (other popular topics in relation to herself: John Travolta, her plane, her dogs). It surprises me how she can get away with so much ego (she's on every cover of her magazine) and still have a ca-zillion fans. G. even had a student who firmly believed that Oprah as president would solve the world's problems. I know she gives a lot of money to charity (and I know it's a LOT of money) and uses her fame to highlight serious issues. Yet she also uses her fame to milk her celebrity for all its worth.

Now on the subject of celebrity. Did anybody catch Isaac Mizrahi for E! during the Golden Globes? It was hilarious. He kept asking the celebrities totally inappropriate questions about underwear and the like. It was so much more entertaining that those other kiss-butt red carpet shows and, may I venture to say, even subversive. The whole purpose of those shows is to publicize these celebrities' careers and clothes and life and make all of us schmoes feel like fat, ugly, poor slumps (alright, I'm speaking for myself). But Isaac didn't play by the red carpet rules and was borderline rude-- he undermined the red carpet! Now, Isaac can get away with this behavior on the red carpet and his talk show because he's gay and a little flamboyant and flighty, so it's behavior that is disarming and not dangerous (per se). Cut to last year's E! red carpet events where Kathy Griffin did the same type of schtick, but because she's a comedian and a woman, it's unacceptable (still subversive however). So, she's out, and cute "harmless" Isaac is in.

Isaac's show is not all about HIM in an Oprah or Tyra way. His slip-ups and mistakes are funny precisely because they work against the polished veneer of other talk shows. And he has fun with the mistakes; he seems genuinely tickled by things that don't go well. Now take another talk show with mistakes, Martha Stewart. She tries so hard to be polished in front of the audience and to partake in witty banter with her chefs and celebrity guests. She fails miserably precisely because her personality is humorless and rather bitchy and no matter how much she tries to suppress it, these traits always emerge. Whether she's making a bed with some guy from Las Vegas or cooking with Carmen Electra, they always end up the foolish Goofus while Martha is the (visibly) triumphant Gallant. Every single time. Martha Stewart worked in the edited confines of her last show, Martha Stewart Living ; it doesn't work with an unedited show and live audience.

So what's the point? I guess there is no point if you aren't into noticing these types of things or watch much TV (I do both in spades). However, I think that Isaac's show, plus Kathy Griffin's biting stand-up and the hilarity of E!'s Talk Soup and VH1's Best Week Ever (all of which poke fun at reality TV, celebrity "news", and talk shows) could be early signs that celebrity worship is in decline. It has reached a point of ridiculousness that is unsustainable. These shows highlight the cracks and shows us how stupid it all is..."Brangelina"???. Meanwhile, WE'RE IN A WAR PEOPLE!!!

And that's how it looks from my little corner of the world.

Superbowl socializing is for chumps

So the Superbowl...I watched it (at least part of it). I succumbed to the media hype and tuned in, even though football ranks low on my Sports-I'll-Watch-List. While we rated the commercials, G. and I came to a realization about the Superbowl and (oddly enough) New Year's. On the eve of both events, I feel a certain amount of pressure to socialize. And the social activity must be enormously fun and memorable. Sounds crazy, huh? We did not participate in any social activity this year, mainly because we don't know many people here (and those we do know do not like football). G. was actually reading for the week, so he wasn't really "into" the big game. My sister and her husband were doing home-stuff. I even tried to hang out with my parents to watch the game, but they had other plans!

In other news, I'm trying to popularize the phrase "------- is for chumps." Example: "Putting raisens in your oatmeal is for chumps" "Double dipping a chip is for chumps." A Superbowl social activity would have been perfect for spreading the word on my new phrase, but, well you know how that turned out. Come to think of it, G. and I don't have much luck popularizing our own trends. Let's see, there was Huey Lewis and the News and hmmm, I can't remember the others, so they definitely didn't have staying power. But this one is going to be a hit! Would it be appropriate for lecture, as in "Paying higher British taxes was for chumps" or "Text messageing in class is for chumps." Maybe using it in class would help spread the phrase among the young people...I think I'm on to something...

Feel free, blogging world, to incorporate the phrase into your everyday conversations. Think of the possibilities.

Saturday already?!

It's almost Saturday--I do love the weekend. G. has a class tomorrow morning and plenty of reading, too, and I have a long list of things to-do, so (on the surface) this Saturday could easily resemble last Saturday (see the "I'm Bored" post). What might make a difference is that we have a stockpile of wine, a fridge stocked with yummy food, and I'm in the middle of a cultural analysis of Michael Jackson (On Michael Jackson by Margo Jefferson). Good prospects.

I pushed through the boredom last week and ended up watching pieces-parts of four movies of varying quality: Saturday Night Fever (I love this movie. I own this movie. I've memorized several key dance moves in this movie), Private Parts (I'm actually a big Howard Stern fan. He aired in El Paso for a short time while I was in high school, then was suddenly and inexplicably taken off the air. Luckily, I've rediscovered Howard on Sirius--more evidence that satellite radio is fucking awesome), Capturing the Friedman's (disturbing, thought-provoking look at a family in crisis through their own home videos. Brought up a lot of questions about how memories can be manipulated by our own minds, other people, and even media like video tapes. Worth checking out), finally, Running Scared (Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines--yeah, the dancer, those wacky 80's!!!--play tough cops on the mean streets of Chicago. Overflowing with cop-schtick-buddy picture crap. Which makes me wonder if that plotline was actually funny in 1986? Oh, and if Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines aren't enough starpower for you, Jimmy Smits is thrown in as.....yep, the local Cuban-Columbian-Puerto Rican-generic Latino drug kingpin.)

Varying quality indeed.