This little girl is presenting her research at the AAAL conference in Denver, CO!

http://www.aaal.org/aaal2009/

Pyrotechnic Stars

Beyond the multitude, memorizing array of colors, bursting tendrils, the rain of

glitter transforming sapphire blue of darkness into flickering daylight, past the

reflections on a skyscraper, renovating the black face of windows into a glass

rainbow, a realized mnemonic, smoke birthing an ethereal scene, haze filling the

city, drifting, weaving within crowds, creeping up the mountain, and

even beyond,  the hiss and crackle of sparkles, sizzling ember, fading after

 a final twirl,  there was my head on your shoulder, and auditory confusion

between thudding  fireworks and entwined  heartbeats.

McMurray Farms

In the orchard, aimlessly wandering throughout

Endless rows of Golden Delicious, McIntosh, and Roman,

The children stumbled, mouths full of the Forbidden,

The apple hunks; Juice and drool dripping, dribbling

Down their chins, sliding down their Pillsbury necks.

Sticky hands clutching their precious, plastic bags,

Treasures spilling, escaping to the ground,

As they stare, glossy-eyed, intently focused

Upward –

Towards the Unreachable, sweetest fruit.

Alligator Cracking

We hit a pothole, somewhere near Forbes and Murray

A jostle, without warning, throws me into you.

Your arm catches my uncertainty;

Your eyes grasp my glance, steady into gaze.

But the bus stops, a designated

Predetermined location, the line yanked;

Nudge your way, wading through a crowd,

But the trance unbroken, unremitting.

While you stumble out, I tighten my grip,

Hang onto the metal pole.  More shaken than Before—

Having plummeted farther than the Ceiling to

Floor.  

“Mothers of marriageable daughters specifically advise them against marriage to peasants”

Gal, Susan (1978). “Peasant men can’t get wives: Language change and sex roles in a bilingual community”. Language and Society. 7(1). 1-16.

Can you measure beauty? Abercrombie would have to answer yes. You’re either a 0 or a 5.

Avoiding monotonous folding, one of my coworkers and I decided to get candy out of the staff office, which was there because we won “the bucket” for that month. The bucket is a HUGE tin of candy that the company sends to stores who get two perfect reviews from secret shoppers in a month. While picking through the jolly ranchers, taffy, and skittles, I noticed the regional manager’s store evaluation, which she completes every other week. I wondered, what does she look for, what is she complaining about (because nothing is ever perfect, especially when you are in charge). The first thing that caught my eye, as I quickly skimmed her messy handwriting, was that she seemed obsessed more so with the appearance of employees, rather than the appearance of the store (or perhaps appearance of the store in her mind incorporates appearance of employees). Personally, I don’t care how great looking the person is who works in the store, if it’s messy or hard to find things or if I don’t like the clothes, I’m not going to buy anything. On another note, while I might look at the people working at the store and think, ‘oh that’s cute’, if I think the person wearing it looks better in it then me, then I most likely won’t buy it. Anyway, in her notes, she complained that the manager was not enforcing the ‘look policy’, specifically in regards to jewelry and make-up (neither of which you are allowed to wear, unless the make-up is ‘natural’ ha). Then, she continued to complain about the ‘look’ of the male ‘models’ working at the store. Apparently, only one meets her standard of what an Abercrombie male should look like and she had no problem writing this bluntly. At one point she said, “Bill is the only one we could put on the Holiday Casting Card” and we need “HOT HOT HOT” guys. Interesting. On a side note: the HCC is this little card abercrombie sends out around the holiday season and people vote for the best looking boy and girl on the card. The two that are chosen are paid double to stand in the front of the store and greet people for a week. Sounds like a good deal to me, but apparently Bill is the only worthy male contestant. Lucky Bill. I flipped the page, feeling sad for my male coworkers, who although might not be gorgeous, are really nice and friendly. I noticed a rubric towards the bottom of the page. She answered ten questions and chose either 0 or 5. Let me reiterate, it was either 0 OR 5. All or Nothing. This might not have been that bad, until I read questions 3 and 4. “All the female models currently working have beautiful faces” and “all the male models currently working have beautiful faces“. That week the girls had received a 5 and the males a 0, but of course being curious, I flipped to another review, and both the girls and the guys had received a 0. Is beauty all or nothing? Is beauty collective? One person with an “non-beautiful” face destroys the beauty of everyone else? How would a manager fix a score of 0 in that category? or an employee for that matter?

Would you change your face.

Darkness can harbor that which people don’t want others to see, but, as I found out, it can be more revealing than the brightest light. The power went out at Hooters last night, not just for a minute, but for 2 hours, until finally, with the emergency lights fading, there was no more waiting, we just had to leave. The scariest part wasn’t the 70 mph winds gusting through the city, or the haunting black that seemed to sweep over station square, it was the darkness of people. Approximately 3 tables just walked out on their bill, said they were going to go smoke a cigarette(which you can no longer do at hooters), or check if there was power next door, and never came back, didn’t think it necessary to pay for the drinks or food they had already consumed, focused only on what they were being denied. Luckily, I didn’t have tables at the time (it was a slow night) so I didn’t have to deal with such thoughtlessness. 

After a lot of nothingness, complete disarray, and all my coworkers and the manger chain smoking cigarettes, most people had left, either paying with the cash they had, or leaving their credit card number with the manager. It was clear that no one had any plan of action. So what is the best thing you can do in the dark? The things we can’t do in the light. For Hooters girls, that means a few things. Those 70 wings that were in the frier, but are no longer going to be served, are now fair game. The “employee salad as the only free food” rule goes out the window. Restricted quantities became readily disposable. Ranch dressing, blue cheese, celery seemed to appear out of nowhere. Of course, wings go best with beer so why not put some beer in the styrofoam cup? Does the manager care? Nope. He just wants another cigarette and to know the score of the steelers game. Now fed for, in all likelihood, the first time all day, and loosening up more with each sip (if that’s possible) from their precious polystyrene, the Hooters girls decide to liven the darkness up a little, by dancing to a portable ipod player, which just happens to be filled with a playlist of all rap and hip hop songs. There’s nothing wrong with dancing. Dancing is self expression. It makes you brave. However, some forms of dancing should be reserved for paying customers or intimate settings etc etc if you get my drift… Just like earlier that night, when a regular told me that one of my coworkers (who started right after I did and looks a little like a playboy bunny, with big boobs, bleached hair, and too much make-up), “deserves” to have her picture hung up on the restaurant wall, at that moment, watching the other girls huddle near each other, sipping on beer and showing off their most stripper-esque dance moves, I realized that while I don’t belong to the in-crowd, I have no desire to fit into that mold. I was slightly reminded of high school when one of my coworkers said “Beth’s so quiet” as I sat being non-participatory. Quiet. No one has used that word to describe me in quite some time now, quite the opposite actually. She didn’t mean quiet, as in non-sound producing, in terms of the amplitude or frequencies of my air pressure. She meant quiet in a social sense, a secluded sense. But that’s okay. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I never wanted the attention of the type of crowd who packs into a dark room, staring towards the one spotlight, like bugs on a summer night. I want the light. More than eyes focused on me, instead, cognition working to comprehend what I have to say, desiring meaning and purpose. When it is dark, I don’t blend into the blackness, consumed by emptiness. I won’t be washed out by strategically placed fluorescents. No, I make my own light.

http://www.media.uio.no/personer/arntm/McGurk_english.html

…….

Lexical Decision

Similar to a clitic attached to a proceeding phrase,

Marking more than ownership or possession,

Instead, extending purpose, becoming an addresser term

Not modifying, but rather, Indexing Me,

The definiteness of the first-person possessive adjective

Snuck in that sentence by you

Sets me apart, an aspect – now, identifying feature;

Clears all confusion between referent and

Sense, sign and signified.

A and The have been traded for

My, Yours, Mine, and lead the way to Ours.

While there has been nothing to report as of late, there seems to be so much left unsaid. From small art gallery shows, with their musty smells and cheap wine, how so much creativity and beauty appeared in such an ugly, rundown area, to learning to play shuffle board and the ignorance of the bartender demonstrated by the absence of the orange in our bluemoon. Then there have been the courses (of course ha), sociolinguistics being ever present in my mind… from “dude” to concepts of indexicality. Work hasn’t been on my mind much, same old folding clothes at abercrombie, setting at wall displays, not wanting to work at Hooters, etc. My days seem to be made up of little decisions, red next to the pink or the orange, answer that question even if unsure, take the bus home or stay in the cathedral and do work… however, some decisions, some of these seemingly insignificant choices, have proved to make a difference; like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, the shades greys haves given way to color, to which my eyes are slowly adjusting.