For the Birds! September 16, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Uncategorized.add a comment
My husband is the cleverest, craftiest, coolest guy I know. Not only is he a talented engineer, a percussionist extraodinaire, a piano restoration expert, and an all-around-cutie-pie, but he’s a gifted woodworker as well. This weekend he made me this adorable yellow bird feeder, just for fun. I was so thrilled I had to show them both off.
Grow It, Don’t Mow It September 16, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Uncategorized.add a comment
Our Backyard
Once upon a time, I was a person who mowed my lawn. It was never an onerous task; I enjoyed an excuse to spend time outdoors. I appreciated watching the close-cropped swaths lengthen and merge behind me until my lawn was a breadth of green velvet, stretched tightly from the front porch to the crumbling pavement of our street.
When Spring came, Nature claimed my manicured lawn for her canvas, strewing it with thousands of flowers. I couldn’t mow without hacking down all the daisies and bluebonnets. I kept telling myself that I’d get around to it when they wilted. I didn’t anticipate a long wait- Spring in Texas is brilliant but brief, followed by a slow, cruel whithering season, which bakes the colors from the Earth and bleaches the sky. (more…)
Shit Happens, or Socialists vs. The Universe September 13, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Polictics, Social Commentary.add a comment
The “Quad” is an area of my campus I usually try to avoid. It is typically difficult to maneuver through the teeming throng of students transitioning from class to class, and it annoys me that a significant percentage of the walkable area, which could serve to alleviate crowding, has instead been converted into a kind of hodgepodge bazaar. There is the guy with a couple tables full of cheap jewelry. There are bake sales hosted by student organizations. There are representatives of local businesses handing out coupons and samples of their wares. Sometimes there are military recruitment officers cajoling people into joining them for a round of chin-ups on their portable jungle-gym. There are the Fraternity/Sorority booths, with seemingly little purpose except to serve as a kind of base camp at which their devotees amalgamate and discuss last night’s kegger. There are the requisite handbill distributors (who are indirectly responsible for 80% of the litter in the Quad). And, from time to time, there’s either a religious fanatic damning the students to hellfire, or somebody protesting the war. 
But yesterday, as I was escaping into the side door of a building near the outskirts of this frenzy, I noticed a couple of thin, angry-looking hippie types hawking newspapers. My curiosity got the better of me and I paused long enough to read the title of the paper held overhead by the nearest angry hippie. The paper was called Workers Vanguard, and the hippie was shouting something about the government and worker’s rights.
I rolled my eyes and went inside. But the idea of being a college student with a socialist newspaper stuffed into her backpack was too funny to resist. It was so old-timey and cliche that it seemed like fun, an imperative, in the same way that, if you moved to Russia, your first purchases might be a fur hat and a bottle of vodka. (more…)
Generation i September 12, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Rants, Social Commentary.2 comments
Alright. So, compared to most of the people on my university’s campus, I’m an old fart. I don’t look like an old fart (at least I hope I don’t), but being 30, I know I qualify. I am further qualified by my attitudes and opinions when it comes to the behaviors and trends embraced by most of my younger classmates. One of the most troubling tendencies I’ve noticed is their love affair, nay, obsession with their ipods.
It’s a little creepy, really. If I had to hazard an estimate, I’d say that a good 75% of the kids shuffling from class to class have those ubiquitous little white wires snaking out of their ears (the other 24.9999% are engaged in some sort of cell phone activity, and the other .0001% represents myself, scowling in disapprobation). Even students sitting on the floor outside of their classrooms, apparently studying, have their earbuds jammed in place. (more…)
For shame! September 6, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Uncategorized.3 comments
A few months before my wedding, I was employed as a waitress in a somewhat run-down, poorly-decorated, slightly stale-smelling Mexican food restaurant. This is one of the three restaurants in the small Texas town where I grew up, and where I have returned to live after meandering around the Southern and Western portions of the U.S. for about 10 years. One evening I happened to find myself waiting on an older woman with whom I had been employed as a teenager. The woman was a person I respected. On top of being a talented writer and notoriously gifted chef, she had always been kind to me when I was an obnoxious and moody teen, and again as a patron of the restaurant where I regularly served her enchiladas (i.e., she was a good tipper). But my esteem of her open-mindedness withered on this night. (more…)
Gonna Keep On Truckin’ September 26, 2007
Posted by millyonair in Rants, Social Commentary, Things Environmental.2 comments
Honestly, I could list myriad reasons why more people haven’t demonstrated interest in switching to more efficient methods of transportation. The biggest reason is the singularly American partiality for quaffing that toxic cocktail of ignorance and apathy. These two spirits inebriate us to the point of complete inertia. We appear to be a nation of procrastinators, waiting until it comes down to the wire, environmentally speaking, before we’ll reluctantly slither down from the driver’s seats of our SUVs and heave our collectively heavy butts onto the global bandwagon. (more…)