Career Choices

Some time ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article on the best and worst careers one could have:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127.html

By their criteria, I'm not doing so well.

-Environment: Ranges from luxury hotels to working outside in January in pants and a corset

-Income: Just over the national average, which would be more of an accomplishment if I didn't have three university degrees and a mountain of student debt to pay off.

-Employment outlook: If I know what I'll be doing and how much money I'll be making 24 hours from now it is indeed a good and lucky day.

-Physical demands include dancing, eating fire, hauling luggage and boa constrictors around the country. Also the aforementioned outside-in-one's-pants.

-Stress: See "employment outlook".

These are the standards set out by the article, which does not actually inquire into one's job satisfaction. This problem becomes clear when practitioners of one of the "worst" professions, lumberjacks, insist they love their job. And likewise, I cannot believe that income is everything or that physical demands are negative. Yesterday I danced to the point of exhaustion, but I got an endorphin high, made a roomful of people happy, had £100 of tips thrown over me, wore a series of luxurious and beautiful costumes, interceded in a dispute between two men vying to buy me champagne (solution: we all sit down at one table and drink both their bottles together), and was told ad nauseam that I am extremely beautiful and that I dance well. I then slept until noon, went to a costume-sewing social, and read a chunk of Jan Assman's Moses the Egyptian and learned about mnemohistory. I can't really complain.

What I dislike about the Wall Street Journal's criteria are that they suggest ideal work should be stress-free and physically easy. While extremes of stress, environment and physical danger/strain have negative consequences on one's health, surely that does not mean the complete absence of stress and physical motion is necessarily desirable. For example, stressful situations at work may also come with adrenaline and endorphin rushes (I'm an endorphin junkie to such an extent that more than 24 hours without an endorphin rush gives me a full-on existential crisis and generally makes me a pain in the ass). And stressful jobs - surgery, bomb disposal - often come with a great sense of achievement.

It's also helpful to have a job that people perceive as important or interesting. One of my best friends is an investment banker and it's often a social stumbling block that may well lower his life and job satisfaction. Another friend who composes music makes far less money and job security but has the social reward of everyone finding her profession laudable and interesting.

Perhaps it is possible to quantify and rank the value of jobs, but it would be more interesting if the article took additional factors into account, as well as a worker's job satisfaction.

Dear former lovers,


Please do not run into me years later while I am coming home from polo, drenched in sweat and wearing a stained shirt. It would be much more polite if you arranged to run into me on a day when I am strolling around in thigh high boots with my wife on my arm - perhaps whilst on my way to an awards ceremony to be given a prize.

Dads have the best answers

With regard to the stalker mentioned two posts ago:

Me: "Can you deal with him please?"
Dad: "Sure kitten, how many bones would you like me to break?"

Helpful wife

Me: He's making me feel awful no matter what I do.
Wife: Perhaps you could mention your wife would not appreciate him speaking to you that way...and just got a new bone saw.

In which I regret ever buying a phone

As a bellydancer, I occasionally get stalkers. I did get rid of the worst one by being so ultraviolently obscene to him that he told me I was sick and never called me again, and the same treatment may be needed for this one, who has been ringing and texting from multiple numbers since October. I wasted some time begging a then-boyfriend to scare him off but that went nowhere. For months I ignored him but this week I tried replying. Today's exchange was as follows, and for the full effect one must imagine the Salad Fingers voice:

He: U make me feel funni when you do the bellroll
I: Your infantile grasp of the English language elicits far less positive feelings from me
He: U r funni. Thinking of u dancing makes me feel good.
I: Similarly, thinking of skull-fucking your mother's still-twitching corpse gives me a bit of a hard-on
He: Ur sexy

Quote

Other bellydancer: Is there a term for people with a fear of glitter?
Me: Un-fabulous!

I am businesslike

I just had a business call an hour early because my employer forgot the time difference between our countries. I am amused that the frantic scramble to make my room presentable for video skype I had to move ridiculous numbers of condom wrappers (they were just for work, I swear...or does that make it sound worse?), about eight smashed port bottles, and a pair of lurex hotpants. I then threw on a collared shirt and discussed eighteenth-century finance like a perfectly respectable human being. Ha.

Speaking of respectably human beings: Before the call I had been on the phone with my wife, who is at work at fretting that "there are dead bodies everywhere". She's pretty good at one-upping me with the work crises.

Enthusiasm

I just came across this exchange, from nearly a year ago:

-Is he your boyfriend person?

-He is my future husband! But I am trying to be cool about him. I may be failing.

-Are you seeing him tomorrow?

-Yes.

-What are you doing?

-Kissing!

Almost married!

My wedding is, unsurprisingly, a unique affair. It will involve some of the usual things such as prancing around a nice hotel in a dress that would made five-year-old me squeal with glee. Guests will range from a mercenary to an Oxford student - likely in subfusc - dashing in between exams to be my maid of honour. Nine Inch Nails and/or Metallica will be played. The best man has refused to make a speech. There is a Designated Jew to ensure glass-smashing and Hora-dancing takes place. One of the rings will be made of black metal because we really are that goth. I am so excited.

Whinge

It has come to my attention that 32% of all wedding invitations include diamante, whilst an additional 12% include some other form of sparkliness. Approximately 82% include hearts and/or bows and/or pink. Thus, within the card industry there is virtually no stylistic difference between a wedding an eleven-year-old's birthday. If one were to draw a Venn diagramme of this, one would see that approximately .002% of invitations involve neither hearts nor sparkles nor pink and that such invitations, due to their rarity, must be custom ordered at great expense and delay from realms far overseas.

My general feeling is that if one can take apart a wedding invitation, use it to decorate a burlesque dancer's costume, and still have the odd rose or rhinestone left over...it is probably not a good choice.

Drinking in style

Holly, reading the label of the liqueur we're drinking: "It says something in French"

Me: "What does it mean?"

Nic: "It means 'a taste of life in Paris'"

Me: "Oh, does that mean we're going to have a threesome?"

Quote

"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting [...] What a ride!"

-Dad

In which fish are shot in a barrel

Yesterday I read an article on from Stratfor, which produces intelligence briefings from an American perspective. In an article entitled "The death of bin Ladin and a strategic shift in Washington", the writer claims:

Although al Qaeda had already been severely weakened in Afghanistan and has recently focused more on surviving inside Pakistan than executing meaningful operations, the inability to capture or kill bin Laden meant that the U.S. mission itself had not been completed. With the death of bin Laden, a plausible, if not altogether accurate, political narrative in the United States can develop, claiming that the mission in Afghanistan has been accomplished.

How did I ever go a decade without noticing that killing or capturing bin Laden was the reason for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan? I had it so wrong! I thought there were a multitude of reasons, from bolstering the Bush presidency with some flashy machismo to removing Afghanistan's ability to be a terrorist shelter and training ground. But somehow it escaped my notice that killing one man offered any strategic significance beyond bolstering the morale of the American populace.

In a Whitehouse press conference Monday, U.S. Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan said of bin Laden’s death: "We are going to try to take advantage of this to demonstrate to people in the area that al Qaeda is a thing of the past, and we are hoping to bury the rest of al Qaeda along with Osama bin Laden." Exploiting bin Laden's killing is, of course, a good idea, but I don't see how one can extract strategic significance from what is, in essence, a symbolic act.

I was under the impression that al-Qa'eda had at least eight major theatres of operations and functioned of four operational levels, undercutting the importance of regional leadership. I thought they were not so much an organization as a decentralised network operating franchise-style in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Britain, and elsewhere, and the death of one man would do little to change that. I thought there was a reason that - almost from the start - papers from West Point to the International Institute of Strategic Studies likened the organization to a hydra.

In a lecture at Oxford University, Professor Bruce Hoffman outlined the four key operational levels as:

1. The elite cadre, often longstanding members of al-Qa'eda or similar organizations with combat experience

2. Affiliate groups, which may use their own names or be assimilated into al-Qaeda. They cooperate with the organization on a number of operational and strategic levels

3. Sleepers: Radicalized locals brought to Pakistan to receive training in explosives and the like. They receive training and are deployed home with open-ended operational instructions

4. The al-Qa'eda network: people unconnected with the organisation, but inspired by it, who carry out attacks they believe will further al-Qa'eda's (rather vague) aims. Some of these people are likely like the Shankill Butchers - thugs who simply use politics as an excuse for thuggishness. This network us useful to groups 1 and 2 for talent-spotting, monopolising the attention of law enforcement and intelligence, and of course, creating terror and the impression of vast power across a wide territory.

The organization is opportunistic, without a clear ideology or modus operandi, and it's pretty damn flexible. It's a hydra, but a lame, peaky hydra that's probably blinking confusedly in the Arab Spring. Privileging the contribution of one CIA mission insults everyone who has worked to bring down al-Qaeda or - from a U.S. perspective - to further America's goals in Afghanistan in less flashy but significantly more lasting and meaningful ways. And it insults everyone who has lured away members and potential members by creating ideas and movements more enticing and positive than the incoherent misanthropy of al-Qa'eda.

Why I like strip clubs

Best and most quintessentially JAP threat of my NY trip: "If you do that, I will wear sneakers to your wedding."

This is not as good as my previous trip's top quote,  a man in Queens shouting "Nigga, I will put a cap in yo' ass!" Not to me, thankfully.

Speaking ofNew York things, my friend and I had a decadent excursion last night in which I received four - four! - lap dances. Three from the same ridiculously hot woman. Like a good feminist, I spent a fair amount of timing considering the gender implications of the venue.

I like strip clubs. I like any scenario in which a smoking hot woman invests time in making herself look and smell amazing and then gyrates around on my lap. In my years of gaying it up with various fantastic women, I have encountered only two who wear sexy lingerie and only one who could put on the kittenish aggression of a lap dancer, albeit not very convincingly. I have met exactly zero who were as tasty-smelling and flawlessly made-up as a girl in a club. Real life girlfriends just don't manage that, myself included. I think I go farther than most in my quest to be a fantasy girl around my partner, but I really can't be bothered to put on make-up if I'm not going out and my Reed College Renn Fayre Softball t-shirt is often irresistibly more comfortable than lingerie.

Plus, women aren't generally attracted to me. So if I want a girl on my lap, $20 is a hell of a lot easier (and actually cheaper) than the epic endeavor of finding someone who'll do the same for free. More importantly, I want a girl on my lap. If she wanted to be on my face as well, so much the better - but what I don't want is a relationship. I have one. One is enough.

Now, I used to think I wasn't the kind of person who would lead someone on or misrepresent what they wanted. Then I met a woman so attractive I selfishly stayed mum about my intentions and dodged her attempts at relationship talk because I knew it would harm my chances of continuing to sleep with her. After about two weeks we did talk about it and I am no longer pouncing her, but my point is that lust can breed dishonesty and when all we want is sex it's hard to be honest about it - especially with women, as women have been taught that nice girls don't have sex-based relationships. One solution is to try to change the stigmatisation of casual sluttery; another is to condone aspects of the sex industry. I like to do both.

I think if I could pay a non-coerced professional prostitute to have sex with me that would be more ethical, and just as enjoyable, as having sex with a woman I knew I was screwing metaphorically as well as physically be implying a forthcoming relationship I knew I would never follow through with.

As that's illegal in the places I live and visit, the next best thing is lap dances. I could go to a gay bar and chat up a mediocre-looking girl in horrifically sensible shoes and

A) explain that I have a boyfriend and just want to grind up to her and have her on my lap (that would go down well, I'm sure) or

B) imply I am actually interested in her as a person and want to see her again and lie my way into her pants

Or I could have a straightforward financial transaction in which everyone is clear about what they are getting and giving.

The transactional situation is perhaps more balanced for me because I could, I assume, become a stripper myself and would be perfectly happy to provide her with the same service for the same price. So I mentally put myself in her six-inch-high shoes and behave as I would want a client to behave were I her.

The honest fantasy of strip clubs is great. And I enjoy receiving the attention of women who are out of my league. For me, hot women are mainly inaccessible because most women are straight, I have hang-ups about bisexuals, and a large number of lesbians seem to view such basics as razors, lace g-strings, and anti-frizz hair serum as unacceptable tools of the patriarchy. For me, I am consoled by being bisexual and professionally hot - two men asked me out on my way to the strip club so I could have consoled myself with them had I been so inclined. But some strip club patrons aren't interested in men and yet pretty much all hot women are out of their league. I like that such people can occasionally buy the hot-girl experience the same way a poor guy with an '88 Volvo can save his pennies and rent an Aston Martin for the day.

Strip clubs are not, however, entirely forced for good, and I'll end with just one of the things I don't like. While the club I went to had a range of heights, races and chest sizes, all the women were between skinny and slim. I find it hard to believe clients would object to someone with at least an average amount of fat. Even aside from the disappointment I feel as someone whose ideal is a 12-petite and who sees only sizes 6 to 8 in a club, the implications of this are grim. In restricting its performers to a certain body size, the club commodifies thinness and implies that other body types are literally worthless.

Why I am not Oxford and London's best bellydancer

Time and again I am bemused by my fellow UK bellydancers who advertise with phrases such as "London's best bellydance classes" or who register domains such as the now-disabled www.bestbellydancer.com. To claim one's performance or classes are the best is both gauche and factually suspect, unless one is making a joke like "Best bellydancer in Saddlestring, Wyoming!" when one is, fact, the only bellydancer in Saddlestring. Did van Gogh advertise "Best paintjob in London!" in the time he spent there? Did Martha Graham take out adverts saying her studio was the best in NYC? Quite right.

Not only are such claims logically questionable, they downgrade bellydance from an art to a trade. Because it may be possible to identify an area's "best" mechanic or cabinet-maker but art remains a matter of taste.

And the antagonizing hubris of such claims does not even require comment.

Visa application

Question from a UK visa application:
"Have you, or any dependants who are applying with you engaged in
any other activities which might indicate that you may not be
considered to be persons of good character?"
That's so vague! I'm tempted to answer "yes" and write an ashamed, detailed confession of how I sometimes watch rather gruesome German bukkake porn.

I am in New York

I am in New York visiting, riding, bellydancing, and having a yoga instructor crank me into stress positions that would probably violate the Geneva Conventions if I weren't paying for the privilege.

Anyway. Fantastic exchange this morning:

"Did you see the article about the Jewish women wearing burkas?"

"That's horrible!...It threatens my smug sense of cultural superiority."

Indeed, a few Jewish women have adopted the burka and there are several articles available online about it, such as this one at Lilith: http://www.lilith.org/blog/2008/01/orthodox-jewish-women-wear-burkas-and-their-men-dont-like-it/ I don't like the attitude of some articles that the women must be stopped. While I agree the jewburka wearers are odd and the movement's leader may be an unpleasant person, people should be free to wear whatever they damn well please when they walk down the street.

I am reading Morag Murray's My Khyber Marriage, which a friend from the blogosphere gave me upon our real-life meeting, and the author describes traveling to Afghanistan just after World War I to live with her husband, a chieftan's son she'd met whilst he was at university in Scotland. Morag casually mentions her burka at several points but it is always a casual aside, as when she mentions moving aside the niqab part to eat. But eighty pages into the book she has yet to properly comment on, let alone judge, the garment. I am intrigued that something that seems so radically foreign to me, living - as she did - in the UK, should be adopted so silently and with seeming ease.

Squeaks of pleasure

It appears one can get married in the Bodleian Library.

On ownership

I am content with what I own.

Apart from a tendency to buy satin knickers at Debenhams when I'm stressed (in a classically Freudian sublimation of the libido into the fetishization and pursuit of consumer goods -- see, if I say it like that it sounds like a fancier and more sophisticated problem), I have never been very excited about consuming. The anticipation, the shopping, the shiny newness are all nice, but I'd rather do other things with my time. And I feel uncomfortable when possessions are duplicates or if they are not exactly right. I am an extremely particular shopper, which makes most forms of shopping rather intense and tedious.

But I do love owning things. I love useful things, but I love beautiful things even more - and perhaps most of all, objects that are both useful and beautiful, like a Tuareg dining table or a perfect black handbag or an elegant pen. Marxists might suggest this is an extension of foolish consumerism, but the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement is a more accurate lens. William Morris once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” and I believe the ideal is for everything in one's house to be beautiful and useful. A certain gentleman friend of mine, for instance, exemplifies this in being both decorative and able to fix my website problems.

Ownership makes me feel rich, happy and content and I am sated with it. I have all the furniture, clothing, shoes, electronics, costumes, music and books I want. Student loans keep my account empty but I feel rich. I like the idea that all my extra money can now be spent on knowledge, that I can throw my earnings into dance classes rather than worrying about buying a new stove or boots that don't leak.

From "The Still Time" by Galway Kinnell

I know there is still time -

time for the hands

to open,

to be filled

by those failed harvests,

the imagined bread of the days of not having.

I remember those summer nights

when I was young and empty,

when I lay through the darkness

wanting, wanting,

knowing

I would have nothing of anything I wanted -

that total craving

that can hollow a heart out irreversibly.

Housekeeping

My room is now spectacularly tidy, thanks to lots of coffee and the company of my friend Kate. I organised all my books and quite a lot of my papers from teaching War Studies papers. I have some pretty goddam weird book categories ("torture"; "dead languages") and some continued categorical problems, like whether to separate military and nonmilitary history and also Middle Eastern and Western history. Because I take everything Much Too Seriously I have been distressed that, for example, Fanon is in the "Middle East/North Africa" section, as though French colonialism in Algeria has nothing to do with France. I am also tempted to make a "manuals" section because I am having trouble finding where to put my manuals for things and I like the idea of having the IRA's Green Book next to an al-Qaeda training manual and instructions for how to use my video camera and my oven.

Adventures in film

You know your life is too good to be true when the hottest woman you've ever met, who happens to be an actress, tells you she's filming a queer comedy and needs someone to make out with in the shower scene.