Shirtless men are wielding sledgehammers directly outside the window by my desk.
Perhaps I'm just not meant to get anything done today.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Lethargic Miscellany
I've been in a slightly weird state since I got back home. I don't know exactly why. Was it the return to all the old and varied stomping grounds? the 9 solid days of being with other people? the fact that I no longer have any immediate plans to get out of town? I'm not sure.
Here are the symptoms. 1) I'm tired. Exhausted. Yesterday I quite literally did nothing (except go swimming) until 5 pm, and even then all I did was go to the grocery store. I can't even account for the passage of time. And then this morning I'm still tired. Eventually I need to get back to work, I suppose, but it's hard when my head feels like it's about to roll off onto the desk. 2) A bit of moodiness and irritability, like the things that seemed really great a few weeks ago have all kind of lost their luster. I hope that this is just connected to the weariness and/or is a feature of my recovering from too much socializing, because it's not great.
It's possible, too, that I haven't entirely worked out all of the issues that I thought I'd worked out in the spring, and perhaps there are some leftover stresses, some things with which I still need to fully make my peace. I don't mean to be cryptic here, but I don't particularly want to be any more specific than that, either.
In any event, it is my hope--nay, conviction--that getting back into my usual routine and back to work will shape me up.
**********************************************
In that vein, let's move on to brighter topics:
**********************************************
* I have a $100 gift certificate to Amazon (courtesy of my credit card rewards system--I've been hoarding them for years, I kid you not) and have not yet decided how to spend it. A part of me wants to be totally frivolous and buy something like the complete Buffy series (which is more than $100, I'm quite certain), but perhaps there are better uses for my money. Like some nice work-related books that I need. Or a whole packet of novels. I don't know! And here's what's going to happen: The gift certificate will become so fetishized and precious that I'll never be able to bring myself to use it, and will actually spend money at Amazon for future purchases just so that I can keep the coupon. In order to prevent that from happening, I'm willing to take suggestions.
* I've received several very polite rejection letters in response to my manuscript proposals. A rejection letter is not normally a bright topic, of course, but I'm impressed by just how very polite and nice these rejection letters are (to paraphrase: "Dear Professor Mihi, Thank you for your very interesting proposal, it looks wonderful, just not right for us right now, etc etc'"). I've sent out loads of short stories and a handful of agent queries for novels over the years, and the rejection letters are not so nice ("Author: We received your submission and whatever tripe you've written, it's clearly not for us. Next time you might actually look at our journal before inundating us with your garbage; that way you'll know just how sub-par it really is."). So, even though I'm reasonably certain that I'm still receiving form letters (with my name and MS title plugged in), the tone of the letters is helping to preserve my optimism. Also, I've so far only sent my proposal to really absurdly top-tier publishing houses, so I can't get too discouraged yet.
Best of all:
I have a new favorite word: Trashcousin!
On my travels, I met a child (she turned four this week) who called everyone "trashcousin." The term apparently denotes some favor, or at least affectionate familiarity--as in, "Hey, trashcousins! What's happening?" It has something to do with Oscar the Grouch, but a Google search on the word yielded nothing, so I can only assume that it's her own creation. In any event I am now determined to get this into at least local circulation, as it seems like a word worth preserving. So, trashcousins! It's time I shake off this lethargy, maybe put on my glasses (contacts are too much work this morning; besides, I'm still in my pajamas), and read that chapter that's been idling on my computer lo these many weeks. Thanks for reading, trashcousins!
Here are the symptoms. 1) I'm tired. Exhausted. Yesterday I quite literally did nothing (except go swimming) until 5 pm, and even then all I did was go to the grocery store. I can't even account for the passage of time. And then this morning I'm still tired. Eventually I need to get back to work, I suppose, but it's hard when my head feels like it's about to roll off onto the desk. 2) A bit of moodiness and irritability, like the things that seemed really great a few weeks ago have all kind of lost their luster. I hope that this is just connected to the weariness and/or is a feature of my recovering from too much socializing, because it's not great.
It's possible, too, that I haven't entirely worked out all of the issues that I thought I'd worked out in the spring, and perhaps there are some leftover stresses, some things with which I still need to fully make my peace. I don't mean to be cryptic here, but I don't particularly want to be any more specific than that, either.
In any event, it is my hope--nay, conviction--that getting back into my usual routine and back to work will shape me up.
**********************************************
In that vein, let's move on to brighter topics:
**********************************************
* I have a $100 gift certificate to Amazon (courtesy of my credit card rewards system--I've been hoarding them for years, I kid you not) and have not yet decided how to spend it. A part of me wants to be totally frivolous and buy something like the complete Buffy series (which is more than $100, I'm quite certain), but perhaps there are better uses for my money. Like some nice work-related books that I need. Or a whole packet of novels. I don't know! And here's what's going to happen: The gift certificate will become so fetishized and precious that I'll never be able to bring myself to use it, and will actually spend money at Amazon for future purchases just so that I can keep the coupon. In order to prevent that from happening, I'm willing to take suggestions.
* I've received several very polite rejection letters in response to my manuscript proposals. A rejection letter is not normally a bright topic, of course, but I'm impressed by just how very polite and nice these rejection letters are (to paraphrase: "Dear Professor Mihi, Thank you for your very interesting proposal, it looks wonderful, just not right for us right now, etc etc'"). I've sent out loads of short stories and a handful of agent queries for novels over the years, and the rejection letters are not so nice ("Author: We received your submission and whatever tripe you've written, it's clearly not for us. Next time you might actually look at our journal before inundating us with your garbage; that way you'll know just how sub-par it really is."). So, even though I'm reasonably certain that I'm still receiving form letters (with my name and MS title plugged in), the tone of the letters is helping to preserve my optimism. Also, I've so far only sent my proposal to really absurdly top-tier publishing houses, so I can't get too discouraged yet.
Best of all:
I have a new favorite word: Trashcousin!
On my travels, I met a child (she turned four this week) who called everyone "trashcousin." The term apparently denotes some favor, or at least affectionate familiarity--as in, "Hey, trashcousins! What's happening?" It has something to do with Oscar the Grouch, but a Google search on the word yielded nothing, so I can only assume that it's her own creation. In any event I am now determined to get this into at least local circulation, as it seems like a word worth preserving. So, trashcousins! It's time I shake off this lethargy, maybe put on my glasses (contacts are too much work this morning; besides, I'm still in my pajamas), and read that chapter that's been idling on my computer lo these many weeks. Thanks for reading, trashcousins!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wow. Go away for a week and come back to instant fame!
Just a quick note because I'm about to die of fatigue:
I got home this evening after a two-day drive. I checked email and took a look at my stat counter (expecting low hits because, after all, I've been away). But no! There were many many hits! Many more than I've ever had before!
Apparently I have been linked here. And apparently I have "plenty to write about." Which is good to know, because I usually feel like this blog is kind of circling over the same non-issues week after week. It would seem, however, that I've succeeded in interesting someone.
Expect more updates on the non-issues in my life soon, for I do have plenty to write about them. Whether I actually get around to the writing is, of course, another matter.
I got home this evening after a two-day drive. I checked email and took a look at my stat counter (expecting low hits because, after all, I've been away). But no! There were many many hits! Many more than I've ever had before!
Apparently I have been linked here. And apparently I have "plenty to write about." Which is good to know, because I usually feel like this blog is kind of circling over the same non-issues week after week. It would seem, however, that I've succeeded in interesting someone.
Expect more updates on the non-issues in my life soon, for I do have plenty to write about them. Whether I actually get around to the writing is, of course, another matter.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Next Time You See Me, I'll Have a Car
I'm leaving tomorrow for an epic tour of the East Coast/Midwest, culminating in my triumphant return with my very own car.
Returning a week from Tuesday.
Maybe I'll have some medieval--or even just thinly academic?--content once I'm back into the groove.
Bye, y'all.
Returning a week from Tuesday.
Maybe I'll have some medieval--or even just thinly academic?--content once I'm back into the groove.
Bye, y'all.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Oh, Marcel
I've been reading In Search of Lost Time for eight or nine years, and I'm now within shouting distance of the end--about a third of the way through Time Regained. (I'm reading it in English, I admit. Although I did read most of Du Cote de chez Swann and Albertine disparue for a seminar in grad school. Not that that matters; I'm just boasting over my admittedly very modest accomplishment.) Anyway, when I try to summarize the book--insofar as it can be summarized, of course of course--I find myself talking a lot about Marcel/Proust's seeming obsession with homosexuality. I mean really. Basically all of the last 1200 or so pages (of my 2400-page edition) is about whether a) Albertine is sleeping with other women; b) if so, who might those other women be (everyone, in his imagination); c) how one can tell whether a woman is a lesbian (basically he thinks they all are); d) how Paris is overrun with lesbians engaging in an orgy of secret rendezvous; e) the gestures, tones, actions, etc etc common to homosexual men; and f) how it should have been obvious all along that Saint-Loup was "of that inclination" because of a certain minute resemblance to the Baron de Charlus.
It's weird.
(I was describing this to the Minister the other day and he said, "So, basically, could you say that this is the first major treatise on gaydar?")
Now I remark upon this because it seems to me that anytime anyone talks about Proust, they talk about the madelaine incident, the art criticism, the reflections on beauty and aesthetics and memory and all that other lovely abstract stuff. They don't talk about the scene where Marcel stumbles upon the Baron de Charlus chained to a bed in a hotel room where one Maurice is flogging him with a nail-studded cat-o-nine-tails. I mean, I'm sure that some people talk about these scenes--and I know that there are critical works out there on homosexuality in Proust, of course there are--but really, when I came upon that scene I wondered how anyone could be distracted by the musings on the Combray cathedral when the entire second half of the novel is just peppered with such salacious (and weirdly paranoid) detail.
So why doesn't this ever come up when people are casually referencing Proust?
Is it because--as I suspect--most of those who are making such casual references haven't read very much of the novel?
It's like this dream I had when I was a teenager: There was a famous 17th-century thinker who'd written an encyclopedic work spanning many volumes, and everyone loved it and spoke highly of it although it was supposed to be immensely difficult. Well, one day I (in my dream, still, of course) got a hold of a copy of this work and started leafing through it. Imagine my surprise when I found nothing but blank page after blank page until I got to the end, when there was a single line in the middle of a page, saying:
"I have had carnal relations with your sheep."
I awoke giggling. I now believe that dream to have been a foreshadowing of my encounter with Proust.
[CAVEAT: I am not, of course, wholly serious in this post, and I am also very much not a Proust scholar. As I say, I know that there's some scholarship (at least) on sexuality in Proust, and for all I know there's a cubic ton of it, and everyone in Proustian circles talks about nothing but his weird obsession with other people's sex lives. All I'm saying is that, when the non-Proustian come across the casual reference to Proust and the supposedly obvious themes of his work, you never see anything about, for example, his conviction that Paris is nothing but a clandestine network of promiscuous lesbians.]
It's weird.
(I was describing this to the Minister the other day and he said, "So, basically, could you say that this is the first major treatise on gaydar?")
Now I remark upon this because it seems to me that anytime anyone talks about Proust, they talk about the madelaine incident, the art criticism, the reflections on beauty and aesthetics and memory and all that other lovely abstract stuff. They don't talk about the scene where Marcel stumbles upon the Baron de Charlus chained to a bed in a hotel room where one Maurice is flogging him with a nail-studded cat-o-nine-tails. I mean, I'm sure that some people talk about these scenes--and I know that there are critical works out there on homosexuality in Proust, of course there are--but really, when I came upon that scene I wondered how anyone could be distracted by the musings on the Combray cathedral when the entire second half of the novel is just peppered with such salacious (and weirdly paranoid) detail.
So why doesn't this ever come up when people are casually referencing Proust?
Is it because--as I suspect--most of those who are making such casual references haven't read very much of the novel?
It's like this dream I had when I was a teenager: There was a famous 17th-century thinker who'd written an encyclopedic work spanning many volumes, and everyone loved it and spoke highly of it although it was supposed to be immensely difficult. Well, one day I (in my dream, still, of course) got a hold of a copy of this work and started leafing through it. Imagine my surprise when I found nothing but blank page after blank page until I got to the end, when there was a single line in the middle of a page, saying:
"I have had carnal relations with your sheep."
I awoke giggling. I now believe that dream to have been a foreshadowing of my encounter with Proust.
[CAVEAT: I am not, of course, wholly serious in this post, and I am also very much not a Proust scholar. As I say, I know that there's some scholarship (at least) on sexuality in Proust, and for all I know there's a cubic ton of it, and everyone in Proustian circles talks about nothing but his weird obsession with other people's sex lives. All I'm saying is that, when the non-Proustian come across the casual reference to Proust and the supposedly obvious themes of his work, you never see anything about, for example, his conviction that Paris is nothing but a clandestine network of promiscuous lesbians.]
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Current Summer Music meme
Hilaire has tagged me for the music meme, and it seems appropriately summery and light-hearted. Here's the rules:
I don't know whom to tag because I think that most of the people I know have been tagged. And for you others, I'm very shy about tagging. So, um, seven of you! Go do the meme! (Besides, seven is a lot of people to tag.)
- List seven songs you are into right now.
- No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer.
- Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs.
- Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.
- "Only Skin," Joanna Newsom. (This is just an amazing song and everyone should listen to it, closely, preferably with headphones. Yes, it's 16 minutes long. Just do it.)
- "On the Radio," Regina Spektor.
- "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City," David Bowie.
- "I Have Forgiven Jesus," Morrissey. (All right, so I always love this song.)
- Track 10 of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610. (It makes my heart hurt, it's so beautiful. And I don't know what the track is called.)
- "Quelqu'un m'a dit," Carla Bruni.
- "Elle m'a dit," Cali. (Two French songs about someone telling someone something. It seems like that should have some kind of significance?)
I don't know whom to tag because I think that most of the people I know have been tagged. And for you others, I'm very shy about tagging. So, um, seven of you! Go do the meme! (Besides, seven is a lot of people to tag.)
Friday, June 20, 2008
Serenity Now
That's a slightly but not entirely misleading title. This week has been a bizarre series of spikes and lulls in stress (especially bizarre given that it's June and there is NOTHING going on around here).
First, there was the gas bill debacle earlier this week. I kind of flipped out about that. But it turns out that now I only owe $30.39; the woman I spoke to today tried to explain about transposed numbers and misrecorded data, but her explanation didn't at all account for the crazy bill. Whatever. I don't owe $400. I'm happy.
Then, I thought I lost my flash drive. This wouldn't be a real disaster or anything, but on Wednesday I wrote three or four really good (or so I thought at the time; we'll see) pages of a transitional section between chapters and, since I was in my office, just saved them onto the flash drive. I was in a bit of despair...and then I found it tangled up in the cord of my fan near the desk. I don't know how it got there.
There was something else. Oh yes. My insurance company told me that my financial institution doesn't exist. That was alarming. But it turns out that I just copied down the zip code wrong when I gave the insurance company the address. No problem.
(I know that there was a fourth thing, too, but I seem to have blocked it.)
So everything is okay--except for a very small medical-type thing that WebMD assures me will most likely go away on its own, but I really hate this kind of thing and it alarms and discomfits me. But I just need to not do any more Google image searches of this particular thing, because it (predictably) provides some pretty horrifying worst case scenarios. I've been down that road before, with all kinds of ailments that I had or didn't have, and I really don't need to do it again.
In retrospect, none of these items seems particularly alarming. At all. Perhaps it's because it's June and there's nothing going on that I'm totally blowing them out of proportion? D'you think?
But in the meantime I have had some pretty nice moments. Just last night, for instance, I got the sprinkler working on my garden and lawn (both are, if not thriving, at least surviving, and may actually do what I want them to do) and finally fulfilled my dream: I lay in my cheap lawn recliner (bought, I am ashamed to say, at CVS) and drank a leisurely beer while reading a Margaret Drabble novel. In the meantime some of the many many neighbor children* frolicked in my drive and, somewhere behind me, the high school band struck up its summertime practicing. I have also learned that a very small bunny lives in my yard; I've now seen it three or four times, and I can get a good look because it's always too scared to run away. (My garden has been fenced in with chicken wire, so I'm hoping that we can cohabit in peace.)
Work has been sporadic, but this week I worked (some) on a couple of chapters and figured out the sequence of primary texts for my upper-level seminar. Pretty much just plugging away. It's nice to read freely these days; summer is good for that.
*Okay. Seriously. I live in Reproductive Ground Zero. Next door: three girls (under 12). Other next door: three girls (under 12). In the Big House where my new landlords live, and on whose property my house stands: FIVE children under 15.** Behind me: at least one child; I haven't quite figured them out. So, for those of you who are counting, that is a minimum of 12 children within a one-house radius.
**The four-year-old boy seems to have taken an interest in me; yesterday, for instance, when I stepped outside to ask his mom something, he charged at me and flung his arms around my legs in this truly adorable hug. It almost made me reconsider the witch persona I'd been thinking about cultivating, here in my storybook cottage, surrounded by tempting (and yet noisy) children.... But not entirely.
First, there was the gas bill debacle earlier this week. I kind of flipped out about that. But it turns out that now I only owe $30.39; the woman I spoke to today tried to explain about transposed numbers and misrecorded data, but her explanation didn't at all account for the crazy bill. Whatever. I don't owe $400. I'm happy.
Then, I thought I lost my flash drive. This wouldn't be a real disaster or anything, but on Wednesday I wrote three or four really good (or so I thought at the time; we'll see) pages of a transitional section between chapters and, since I was in my office, just saved them onto the flash drive. I was in a bit of despair...and then I found it tangled up in the cord of my fan near the desk. I don't know how it got there.
There was something else. Oh yes. My insurance company told me that my financial institution doesn't exist. That was alarming. But it turns out that I just copied down the zip code wrong when I gave the insurance company the address. No problem.
(I know that there was a fourth thing, too, but I seem to have blocked it.)
So everything is okay--except for a very small medical-type thing that WebMD assures me will most likely go away on its own, but I really hate this kind of thing and it alarms and discomfits me. But I just need to not do any more Google image searches of this particular thing, because it (predictably) provides some pretty horrifying worst case scenarios. I've been down that road before, with all kinds of ailments that I had or didn't have, and I really don't need to do it again.
In retrospect, none of these items seems particularly alarming. At all. Perhaps it's because it's June and there's nothing going on that I'm totally blowing them out of proportion? D'you think?
But in the meantime I have had some pretty nice moments. Just last night, for instance, I got the sprinkler working on my garden and lawn (both are, if not thriving, at least surviving, and may actually do what I want them to do) and finally fulfilled my dream: I lay in my cheap lawn recliner (bought, I am ashamed to say, at CVS) and drank a leisurely beer while reading a Margaret Drabble novel. In the meantime some of the many many neighbor children* frolicked in my drive and, somewhere behind me, the high school band struck up its summertime practicing. I have also learned that a very small bunny lives in my yard; I've now seen it three or four times, and I can get a good look because it's always too scared to run away. (My garden has been fenced in with chicken wire, so I'm hoping that we can cohabit in peace.)
Work has been sporadic, but this week I worked (some) on a couple of chapters and figured out the sequence of primary texts for my upper-level seminar. Pretty much just plugging away. It's nice to read freely these days; summer is good for that.
*Okay. Seriously. I live in Reproductive Ground Zero. Next door: three girls (under 12). Other next door: three girls (under 12). In the Big House where my new landlords live, and on whose property my house stands: FIVE children under 15.** Behind me: at least one child; I haven't quite figured them out. So, for those of you who are counting, that is a minimum of 12 children within a one-house radius.
**The four-year-old boy seems to have taken an interest in me; yesterday, for instance, when I stepped outside to ask his mom something, he charged at me and flung his arms around my legs in this truly adorable hug. It almost made me reconsider the witch persona I'd been thinking about cultivating, here in my storybook cottage, surrounded by tempting (and yet noisy) children.... But not entirely.
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