May 1: I took a trip to Oakland for a meeting in Davis. I stayed with Oso, but he was kind of busy moving and doing work. That was okay since I checked out with my buddy Rio as he made tacos and quesadillas with The Tortilla Conspiracy at a local gallery.

May 2: We voted five times before electing a chair. As the current (I guess now former) chair, I couldn’t even break the tie since it was an election for a chairperson. That evening I had wine, tacos and ice cream with Lucero. We also watched watched Sólo con tu pareja thanks to Oso and his Netflix account.

May 3: Oso made me breakfast and then I helped him move out of the cottage where he was house sitting. This cat belongs to the cottage. She liked me a lot and would try to sit on my lap while I used the laptop. I don’t think she knows I’m a dog person. (Photo technically taken on May 2nd, but I was still in Oakland on the 3rd.)

May 4: Oso has been trying to give me this t-shirt for a couple of years now, but we always forgot. This time he didn’t forget.

May 5: Apparently UCLA doesn’t think our students, faculty and staff are smart enough to know how to wash our hands.

May 6: Without a doubt, Nolan is one of my favorite HEOChes (that is, student in the higher ed grad program). He defended his dissertation exploring white male college students’ views on race in front of his committee, some family members and a bunch of fellow students. Defenses in my department usually consist of the student facing his/her committee of four faculty members, but Nolan does things differently. My favorite part of the defense was when Nolan said, “I’m not trying to call white people the devil. I’m calling racism the devil.” I almost burst out laughing, but kept it in until I could make fun of him at happy hour later. We celebrated his successful defense with lots of drinks. I think earning a PhD warrants that.

May 7: Ruben Funkahuatl Guevara read a poem during the “Where you from?” poetry reading at Eastside Luv (Poems as ammo).

May 8: I’m used to seeing guys sag their pants, but not when wearing slacks. This reminded me of Cher Horowitz’s rant at the beginning of Clueless (I love this movie): “So okay, I don’t want to be a traitor to my generation and all but I don’t get how guys dress today. I mean, come on, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants and take their greasy hair – ew – and cover it up with a backwards cap and like, we’re expected to swoon? I don’t think so.”

May 9: Thanks to Chimatli for providing the t-shirt and screen printing.