Monthly Archives: March 2011

tears.

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Yep. Tears. In my chair’s office today. Sigh. I’m just so tired, and struggling to get a handle on the last of my exam prep. I’m just so ready to be done with this part of the process, and it is only beginning.

I came home, cleared my head (by filling it with a pretty standard rom-com type movie), and now I’m curled up here on the couch with Boh, working through possibilities for the big chunk of writing I’m going to produce (ready or not) for part one of my comprehensive exams.

I have not been doing a very good job of letting off steam this week — and I need to be better, especially if I am going to do my best work come Tuesday. (Maybe that means I’ll actually finish that sock?)

Thanks for all the encouragement here in blogland, folks. Back to it.

(Apologies for the crappy phone pictures — I couldn’t bear to move Boh in order to retrieve my camera…)

books and hummus.

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Today: tortillas, hummus from the co-op, and a pouting pooch. And books. Always, books. My first exam starts a week from today, which means it was time for the requisite laptop scare.  (It slid, very slowly, off of a chair in a library cafe yesterday. It was inside its neoprene sleeve, inside my bag, and only fell about 18 inches, and woke up from sleep without any problems, but I still spent part of my morning  a) being paranoid and b) reading internet support forums and running diagnostic tests just to be sure.)

Everything appears to be fine. Still.

It was warmer (read: 45) and sunny today, which meant that I put on my coat and opened up the windows for a bit. Sunshine helps with everything. More soon!

mirror, mirror.

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Idlewood. Again. Clearly I need to make another — after my exams. I snapped this picture before heading to one of my reading groups, where we discussed an excellent graphic novel (Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home) and talked about memoir, history, and voice — and about what makes something not feel self-indulgent. Which got me to thinking about blogging, especially because lately I’ve been snapping pictures of whatever I’m wearing (knits or otherwise) and posting them here. (Which seems incredibly narcissistic.)

On some level, blogging is self-indulgent. Really, all writing is. And I’m okay with that. The question we were wrestling with on Thursday night had more to do with the reader’s experience than the decision to write (or blog), and we kept returning to things like empathy, linking the ordinary and the particular to bigger (in this case, literary) themes, leaving space for interpretation rather than limiting how the reader understands and situates a particular moment, encounter, memory.

I want to think more about blogging as a form and as a personal process. How do conversations about blogging connect with discussions about memoir? In these genres, how do form and content interact? Can we identify conventions particular to blogging? In my own work, I’m thinking a lot about how I use the first person — what am I signally by choosing the personal pronoun? Am I actually revealing something personal, or is it a technique to make the reader identify with the “I”? (I’ve taken to calling this the “pretend personal” voice.) How much do I protect or reveal — here? In my academic writing? Once I’m on the other side of these exams, I’d like to spend some time (and space, maybe here?) thinking through, or maybe more accurately, writing with these questions.

Time for another picture of what I’m wearing? Clearly.

No knits in this shot, just a scarf that hasn’t been in rotation for awhile. Still faking it ’til I make it, and most days, I think it’s working. I managed to grade 10 papers yesterday, all dressed up. (She says, still in her pajamas.)

I knit less than five rows on this sock, and soon I’ll be ready to start decreasing for the toe. Ideally, I’ll finish the first sock this week, cast on the second and get through the ribbing before my first exam. That way I’ll have easy knitting handy to help with hard thinking.

Finished the carrot soup leftovers yesterday. There is another pot of this in my (near) future.

boh knows.

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That pretty much says it all.

I made a big batch of carrot soup from Super Natural Cooking tonight — I love this recipe, especially when made with homemade veggie stock and farm carrots. So good. And there’s plenty for lunch (and dinner?) tomorrow.

Another idlewood action shot. Just for fun. (Well, and for P., who has just cast on an idlewood of her very own!)

Are we there yet? (There being any number of places: bedtime, post-exams, lake house, summer.)

old school.

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Another score from my mom’s closet. This is my mom’s ski vest, likely from the late 1970s, when she and my dad belonged to a ski club called the Schussmeisters. Or something like that. I love the way the stripes wrap around to the back.

Alright. Almost done with my first mug of coffee, and I’m going to need another before I start today’s pile. (Read, write, grade, [sleep?] repeat.)

Hello, Tuesday.

office.

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I snapped this picture of my office with my phone yesterday. The collection of beers on my desk is starting to look suspicious. The Beer Fairy leaves bottles of tasty brew in my mailbox, which I then bring to my office. I haven’t figured out how to transport these home (without, of course, bringing an empty 6-pack to work with me) — I don’t exactly want disaster to strike my computer or the stack of library books often in my tote bag, so they stay on my desk to function as a kind of reward.

Sigh. Back to work. Thanks for letting me take a pouting break, dear internet. Is it bad that I am already daydreaming of May?

dogs and catalogs.

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This dog knows how to pose for close ups and wide angle shots. Where did he learn that?

You know your friends are having more fun than you are when you flip through the latest patagonia catalog and do a double take — because they are IN the catalog. (This made my day, you guys.)

When I was at my parents’ house for turkey dinner, I did my usual quick rifle through the closets, and found a few tops that were my mom’s when I was a little girl. For fun, I tried them on, and hooray — they fit me perfectly. She let me take them home (along with lots of leftovers, a stack of envelopes, some duffel bags from under the bed in my old room — which will be super helpful when I move in late May– and a ream of printer paper), and today I’m wearing one of them. This is a button-up-the-back blouse that was part of a cream/navy polka-dotted suit. (Which was cuter than it sounds.) Anyway, I cut out the shoulder pads (yes, it was the early 80s), and dressed it down. It is freezing out, so I’ll throw a cardigan on over this, but I love it. Wait ’til you see the red one…

Also, for the record, putting on a shirt that buttons up the back all by myself feels like a victory this early in the morning. Happy almost weekend, folks.