Lyzardly

July

2010-07-14T22:34:00.004-04:00

I can handle the incessant caressing of your firebrand hands. I crawl into your full body furnace, snuggling contentedly into the burning belly of the beast. I crave your touch and your embrace. But I cannot tolerate your kiss.

Your moist breath, spiked with salinity, soaks my already saturated skin and I am repulsed. I seek solace in my artificial ice cave and dream of your touch beneath the blankets. If only you could keep your heat after losing your breath.

Integrity

2010-06-16T23:24:00.004-04:00

I let go. Before I held you, as soon as I loved you. Because I had to.
You were worth it. You deserved it.

But you hold me; you will always hold me.

I let go again. After I've held you and I still love you. But again I had to.
I am worth it.I deserve it.

And still you hold me.

You will always hold me.

Decompressing

2010-05-07T10:53:00.003-04:00

There have been multiple times over this past semester when I have been convinced that I will completely collapse. I am a perpetual procrastinator. I don't believe I was born this way. I remember the first time I brought home reading homework from kindergarten. The book was Mr. Jones and Mr. Bones. (Someone has posted the text, so if you want to read it CLICK HERE.) As soon as I got home, I ran to my room and read my book. When I finished, I ran to the kitchen to tell my mom and ask what I should do next. She was cooking or washing dishing - something that kept her close to the counter - and she probably expected homework to keep me occupied for more than a few minutes. I danced around the kitchen and pestered her with "What should I do now?" every few seconds until she suggested that I read the book backwards. I didn't question this, I just I thought that my Mom had all the best ideas. So I ran back to my room and read the story from the back cover to the front, ending with Bones Mr. and Jones Mr. You can bet that as soon as I finished, I was tearing down the hall to ask what to do next.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to that insatiable curiosity and drive to do everything as soon as possible. I didn't know that doing dishes was a chore; I was helping. Folding socks was not a chore; it was preparing ammunition for a sock war. I didn't realize I was not a very good artist; I was simply astounded by the fact if I draw a fish with crayons and then paint over it with blue watercolors it looked like the ocean. Books were where the stories lived. I didn't take forever trying to figure out what to read; I just grabbed what I could reach on the bookshelf.

Somewhere along the line I realized that not everything is possible. The last day of second grade I cried because I was changing schools and it hit me that I wouldn't get to know all the kids at school before it was over. All of those other children were friends I would never get to know. The same thing happened when I visited Powell's Books in Portland for the first time. I cried, because there was an entire collection of Goethe in German that I could not afford. There were books on the shelves that I might never be able to reach.

This semester it seemed that every week something I had always assumed was within my reach was being put on the highest shelves, behind the locked bars of the rare book room, just slightly out of my realm of possibility. I'm astounded at the number of times I have said, "I really cannot deal with this right now. I will cope over the summer." And yet I am happier overall with the work I produced this semester than any other semester. Not because it was my best writing ever, but because I finally stopped writing what I thought I should and started writing what I want. Papers this round contained a lot more Liz ranting than ever before and a lot less deferral to the expert opinions.

With every PhD rejection letter that came in, I reminded myself that Neil Gaiman liked my paper on Coraline. He told Anna, "One wishes it were a whole book." That was also a paper where I abandoned the topic I thought I should have been writing on and wrote what I wanted. Now that I've this expanse of time in front of me without any solid job prospects, I'm going to try to spend a bit of time each day writing what I want to write.

Here We Go Again

2010-01-26T00:02:00.003-05:00

It's the beginning of a new semester. What could possibly go wrong?

Well there's been that bit of news that I was sort of prepared for, but not really since life couldn't possibly be that ironic... but it is. And there was that moment or five of acting like a complete crazy person, in completely understandable circumstances, but crazy nonetheless. Not to mention the infection that began at my nose and spread to my chest, but seems to have stopped short at my lungs. (Which is good, but required the use of a neti pot and I choose to reserve my judgment on whether or not the neti pot gets to fall into the good category. Mainly because my left nostril does not seem capable of dealing with the neti pot.)

And then there is school... a whole other ballgame, as it were. I have to pass a foreign language fluency exam, but I don't know when and I haven't really studied German since high school. Unless you count the Berlitz learning system - which I did, until I completed it and realized that reserving a hotel room won't help me in the least. And then there is the comprehensive exam, which is big, huge, scary ... and I don't even know the date. Shouldn't I be able to know the date by now? I'm guessing other people know the date - but I don't.

Strangely, classes are not so frightening. But it's early yet. I have to give a report tomorrow about a sermon from 1775 in which John Fletcher compares the Rape of the Unnamed Concubine (Book of Judges) to the Boston Tea Party. Why? To justify the use of force to subdue the colonies, of course. Seriously, of all the violent texts in the bible that give the appearance of justifying violence - you went to THAT one? I suppose it's the clearest example of God being agreeable to near genocide due to the destruction of "personal property" - but seriously... a woman raped to death is equal to the loss of tea? The comparison is more horrific than the original story - which is one of the most horrific in the Tanakh, in my not so humble opinion.

Ahem, excuse me I got distracted. The long and the short of it is that January has tried my patience. Never mind that I'm a January Girl, time to get this show on the road and move into February. At least in the second half of the month I can blame Pisces.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

2010-01-13T22:58:00.009-05:00

January's always bitter
But Lord this one beats all

You're told that the New Year begins on January 1st, because the old year ends on December 31st. But January is not a beginning, it is a transition. Janus is the god of gates, of doorways - that place between where you've been and where you're going. The threshold over which new brides are carried, the doorframe upon which a mezuzah should be placed. The interstitial space. This is January.

Janus sees the past and the future. Looking forward while looking back, but never looking within. What's gone before is reviewed, what's yet to come is planned, but what is... that gets lost, swallowed, forgotten. Where the other months are enjoyed, January is barely endured.

A space of unknowability, the place of transformation that we pretend happens immediately. Though it feels like stagnation it is the necessary delay, for nothing happens instantaneously. It is the pause, pregnant with possibilities. We think that because we know where we've been and we believe to know where we're going, we know where we are. As though it is the past and the future which locate the present.

I know where I've been. I know the trajectory I intend to go. But January is bringing about a hell of a metamorphosis, one I will only understand in hindsight. It has pried my frozen hands from the delusion of control, but the sensation hasn't returned to my fingertips. And while I realize these pieces of me have not been wrenched out - amidst this rearranging there is an emptiness and an ache. But I must keep a warm heart, staying supple and malleable. If I freeze, I'll shatter in the wind.

Tonight outside my window
There's a lonesome, mournful sound,
And I can't help but thinkin'
'Bout the ones the wolves pull down

It's the Little Things, For Instance...

2009-10-20T10:36:00.005-04:00

This week my assigned reading includes, but is certainly not limited to:
The Book of Job
Faulkner's "Light in August"
Irigaray's "Women on the Market", "When the Goods Get Together", "Women, Money, and the Sacred", "Divine Women" & "On the Maternal Order"
Kant's "On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in a Theodicy"

AND just for fun (okay, really for my Irigaray final paper) I'm gong to start Morny Joy's new book "Divine Love: Luce Irigaray, Women, Gender and Religion" It's brand, spanking new. The copy I have was loaned to me from my professor who had not yet unwrapped it.

Add to that:
~ the unholy amount of work Craig has done to put together and organize new dressers, bookshelves, and a desk
~ being married to Craigory
~ my snuggly dogs
~ beautiful fall weather
~ coffee

I'm pretty sure it all adds up to me having pretty much the best life ever.

P.S. Last night as I was driving home, I pulled up next to a minivan full of 50ish white men in suits at a red light on McCarter Highway in Newark. I was singing along to Amanda Palmer with my window down and as I turned to see them just happened to caterwaul, "The orange man's got you!" They rolled up their windows and ran the red light almost immediately.

I've not been here, I don't know where I'm going... but I love

2009-10-06T21:17:00.006-04:00

Somehow it's October. I've managed to get through the first month of classes without a stress induced cold sore and if I make it through this weekend it's either divine intervention or apathy. It's a bugger to tell the difference sometimes.

I don't spend much time on the computer anymore. There is a good reason for this, there are also a few bad reasons. The good reason is that I am doing my damnedest to keep my tendonitis from flaring up and making it impossible to write, type, drive, etc. Even with my ergonomic keyboard, too much typing is dangerous. The main bad reason is iGor - my new phone. I use iGor to check email, Facebook, and Twitter. I also use iGor to reward myself for finishing homework by playing a game of solitare. Beyond that - I pretty much just read and walk the dogs. On occasion I remember to eat and interact with Craig, but the fact that when we did grocery shopping this week we only bought dinner for two nights lets you know how well our schedules mesh at the moment.

Often when playing solitare I let my mind wander and have mock conversations with other people. These tend to be arguments and when it becomes apparent I'm really just arguing with myself, I usually stop. Not always because sometimes it's the principle of the thing and a point has to be made... but that's only a couple of times a week.

I wonder if the point of grad school is to prepare you for academia by making it nigh impossible to interact with people outside the academy. That way, by the time you are teaching you will most likely have forgotten that a world exists elsewhere... that the reverberations of your new theory may cross oceans and shake the very foundations of someone else's theory - but they are less than a ripple in that fountain just off campus. It's not that I'm disillusioned, it's that I'm looking for my place.

Academia was always my place, my niche, where I felt at home. In some ways this is still true. I am so comfortable in the classroom, I barely shut up. But as I work on my PhD applications, looking for a department where I will fit, I begin to wonder if such a place exists and if I could even get in anyway. Maybe you'll say it doesn't matter if I fit - but it does. It does to me. I prefer to be happy while undergoing this masochistic endeavor known as a doctral program and it's much easier to be happy with a department that supports you. At least that's what I've been led to believe.

Bah!

The Lit Subject GRE is this weekend. I have no illusions about this exam, I will bomb it. But I will bomb it with grace. I will show up, realize I don't recognize more than 50% of the selections, and plug away at the damn thing for three hours. It won't be the first time I bombed an exam and it probably won't be the last. The fact is I prefer theory and philosophy to poetry. I think historical context is a necessary starting point when discussing literature, but to leave it at that is to treat the text as a one night stand.

It's true that there are plenty of texts that are only good enough for a one night stand. There are texts that you should call your doctor for a prescription of penicillin after you engage with them. But there are so many texts that deserve to be loved unconditionally. I think to love unconditionally, you must find the aporiae. You must know the limits, the inconsistencies, the places where it doesn't quite come together. Not so you can tear it apart, but so you can understand why there is this gap, this slippage.

To believe (or even worse - pretend to believe) that the beloved is perfect is naivety at best and condecension at worst. Just as no person is perfect, no text is perfect. The aporiae are inevitable. To find them one has to read with devotion, with respect, with interest.

Criticism should always be an act of love.

My Friend, Mr. Palermo

2009-09-01T16:12:00.002-04:00

There's an elderly Italian gentleman I often see when I walk the dogs. I say "Hello" or sometimes I wave. He started waving back after a few days. I've started referring to him as "my friend" when I talk to Craig about him. He wears t-shirts tucked into his khaki, knee-length shorts with socks pulled up over his calves, but not quite to his knees. He walks as though his entire torso is one piece, not like a single piece of steel... more like a tree that swayed with the wind as a sapling but has solidified slowly into a slightly bent and twisted hardwood. I think he may have had a stroke or is suffering from Parkinson's. He reminds me of Robert DeNiro in "Awakenings".

A couple of days ago he spoke to me for the first time. He asked if I walk the dogs every day and I told him yes, in fact a few times a day. I said it was good for the dogs. He smiled and said, "Good for you too." I laughed, agreed and went on my way. Today I saw him a little ways off and realized he was coming to meet me. Just then a neighbor's dog escaped and came barreling towards us from another direction. Thea and Max made such a racket the dog hid behind a bush and stared at them until its owner picked it up, apologizing profusely. When Thea and Max finally calmed down I turned around and there was my friend, standing there.

"I wanted to ask you," he began and handed me the box for his Nasonex, "Can you drink ... this?"
"No." I smiled, "It's for your nose. You spray it in your nose."
He looked very confused. "Just yes or no. For drinking?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
He sighed, "Not even wine or beer?"
"Oh! I misunderstood!" I stammered. "Let me see the box."
I read the box and didn't see a thing about alcohol.
"It doesn't say anything - yes or no."
"Oh, what about this?" He shook the Nasonex box and out fell a box for prescription eye drops. "Can I drink with this?"
I looked over the box and replied, "It doesn't say anything."
"Doesn't say anything, for both."
"Correct."
He pointed at his right eye and then his left and said, "One in each eye at breakfast?"
I read the directions and told him, "One in each eye at breakfast and dinner." I held up two fingers, "Twice a day."
"Two eyes, twice a day?"
"Yes."
"Doesn't say anything about drinking?"
"Doesn't say anything."

He smirked and said something I didn't understand, but though I heard "good time tonight" in there somewhere. I smiled, said goodbye and went on my way. It was only when I was walking through my front door that I wondered if he was inviting me over for a "good time tonight".

I decided to call him Mr. Palermo, but I should probably learn what his name is if we're going to have drinks. ;)

Eleven

2009-08-26T10:51:00.003-04:00

I am planning for the future between eleven year old memories of you on your birthday this year. Last year I was about to start a Master's program and this year I am applying to PhD programs. Last year I knew what the next step I was going to take. This year I am hoping that a bridge will appear across this ravine in front of me like it did for Indian Jones. What hopes do you have for the next year? What wishes do you make as you blow out those candles?

I have been remiss in sending letters and now I don't know where to start. I've written so many that haven't been mailed, I'm not even sure what letters have been sent, what updates I have shared, or what updates I should be sharing. In the beginning it was very clear - make sure you know you have always been loved.

But what can I say to you now? Is it enough to know I still think of you and love you. I miss you, and yet I know so very little about who you have become and are still becoming.

We just moved and your picture is always the first one on display. The most recent picture I have of you is from your first day of kindergarten. You'll be starting your first day of sixth grade soon if you haven't already. There is such distance between who you are and how I remember you.

Sixth grade.

In sixth grade I had Mrs. Harper as a teacher. She introduced me to Tom Lehrer by playing "Be Prepared". I taught the other kids to play Blackjack during recess, until Mrs. Campbell saw us playing and took my cards away. I learned about alliteration and then Melissa Wilde, Amber Jones, and I wrote our own alliterations. We filled an entire page, front and back, with the adventures of Billy and Betty.

Billy and Betty bucked on a billboard.
Billy and Betty bopped in Billy's boxers.

We were going to do the whole alphabet. We even ended the page with "Join us next time when Randy rambunctiously rubs Rhonda's rump." But then we showed some of the kids from the other classes at recess. One of them told Mrs. Campbell and our parents were called. I had to read them out loud to my parents with Mrs. Harper sitting there at a table in the library. I didn't dare look at either of my parents. I remember saying, "See, they weren't that bad!" after I read them. Dad said, "Yes they were." And I was grounded from the phone for a month.

Sixth grade felt so grown up at the time. I wonder if you feel grown up, if you try and carry the world on your shoulders as I did back then. I hope not. I hope you don't feel responsible for things beyond your control like I did. I sometimes look back at younger me and wish I could have told her that the world will keep spinning even if she's not standing there turning it like a prayer wheel. I hope your shoulders aren't straining under the burdens of the world that you have claimed as yours alone.

I wonder if you've read all the books I gave you yet. Sixth grade is a good year for Edgar Allan Poe, although I gave Poe for Children so maybe you've read them all already. I wonder if you've read To Kill a Mockingbird yet. I hope you follow the advice I wrote on the inside and read it before they make you read it for school. Somehow being assigned a book can make it hard to love it. I wish I could keep sending you books, but since I can't I pray you discover them on your own.

Sixth grade.
Eleven years old.

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. (Written by Neil Gaiman, but exactly what I wanted to say.)

Happy Birthday Corey.

All My Love,
Mama Liz

Somedays...

2009-05-21T13:01:00.001-04:00

I am just ovewhelmed by the joy in my life. Today is one of those days.

End of semester thoughts...

2009-05-13T19:51:00.001-04:00

This semester was really rough. I was not happy with anything I produced, not any of it. I am not accustomed to that. I realized today that a large part of the problem was that I didn't write much of anything until the last couple of months. Writing is like using chopsticks for me - I know I'm pretty decent at it, but every time I do it I need some time to remember how it works. I don't know why, and maybe that's something I should explore at some point, but for now I'm glad to have come to this realizaton.

I tried really hard to organize and plan out this semester so I wouldn't get as overwhelmed as I did last semester. Instead this semester was a lesson in letting go of control. The research class completely fucked me up. Last minute changes on an almost weekly basis scramble me, probably more than they should. I chose due dates (when I had the option) that would have resulted in an assignment due every two weeks. But all that got screwed up - the research class was a royal mess, nothing could be completed without approvals, approvals were not granted, blah, blah, blah. Everything became due between April 24th and May 13th. It was way too much work to squish into that amount of time.

On top of that, I was dissatisfied with two of my three classes. By the time assignments became due, I was burned out. I felt like I had been on the end of a rope and people decided to swing it around to see if I could hang on.

I had a slow leak from the first week of class, when a professor changed class day at the last minute and then showed up 30 minutes late to class. I was deflated not long after mid-term and THEN it was time to start producing. Which resulted in poor quality work from me.

I know I need to be the one who makes this work for me, but I feel let down this semester. I only feel like one class challenged me mentally and the others wore me out so I couldn't focus on that one class that meant something.

I will take the next 6 weeks to rejuvenate. I have way too much school left to burn out now.

Dreaming about my husband

2009-04-25T10:22:00.001-04:00

I had a dream last night that Craig and I went to pick up our first veggie share from the Community Supported Garden we joined. We get 19 lbs of veggies each pick up and I was so excited to see many things I had never seen before.

There were Italian rolled eggplants (picutre large eggplants that spilt apart at the bottom and roll up), capped moles (these were small rodents wearing paper hats), and many other things. Just as I started to pile my treasure on the scale, Craig came running with the ONE thing he wanted... a 17 lbs pumpkin. He said it would match the two other pumplins he had and he could chop them up and put them in the compost.

I asked if it was from the sharing table - since it's not really pumpkin season it might have been left over and then it wouldn't count against our veggie share. But no, it wasn't.

I said, "Honey it's 17 pounds! That means we only get 2 more pounds of veggies." He looked at me, all bright eyed and excited and said, "17 pounds! Think of all the dirt that will make!"

I sighed, picked up my Italian rolled eggplant and some pomegrante seeds. (I had to put the capped mole back, it weighed too much.) Then we walked out to the car. Him bouncing along carrying this huge pumpkin and me just shaking my head and giggling at the absurdity of it all.

I married a man who gets really excited about dirt. At least I know there will always be joy in our lives ... as long as there is dirt.

The Point of It All

2009-04-20T21:27:00.002-04:00

Spent several hours in the library today, dutifully working on a paper on Derrida, Nietzsche, and Woman. This paper is important to me. More important to me than anything I've done thus far, with the possible exception of my undergrad thesis. I want to do this RIGHT, so I'm doing what I always told myself I should do ... I'm working slowly and closely with the text. I'm annotating almost ever damned paragraph. I want to get this right. The problem is that this paper is due on April 28th... it's now 9:30 pm on April 20th. Time is rapidly slipping out of my hands.

Today, after class ended the panic started to settle on me in a serious way. I've never written a 30 page paper before. Even with footnotes and works cited, my thesis was barely 25. I have a 5 page proposal, which can count as a start. But what that 5 page proposal is seriously lacking is a thesis statement. By the time I made it to my car, I was shaking. What am I thinking going to Massachusetts tomorrow? Yes, it's to do an interview with a woman I highly respect and want to keep as a contact/reference for the future. Yes, the interview is school related. But the class the interview is for... let's just say I can't be bothered to take a class seriously that is cancelled 25% of the time. It's for a class and a professor that I mean nothing to me. Unlike the Derrida paper.

If I do well on this paper, I feel like I can ask the professor for a recommendation for my PhD applications... and a recommendation from her would practically guarantee me a spot at NB, which is my first choice.

So, panic.

I get in the car and the rain which had been coming down at a moderate pace, begins to increase. When I begin to merge from I-280 onto I-80 the heavy rain became torrential and I couldn't see anything. I almost kissed the side wall of the freeway more than once. My windshield looked like Brad and Janet's in Rocky Horror and I realized this could be it. I could hydroplane into the sidewall, into other traffic, into a semi-truck and that would be it. My life could end on I-80 somewhere near Parsippany... and I was panicked about an essay?

Seriously. We all let this happen, all the time. It's part of living a day to day life. But as any good geek knows, the most important thing to remember is "DON"T PANIC" ... not about essays, PhD applications, even hydroplaning on I-80. Don't panic.

The truth is ... I could fail out of grad school. Craig could lose his job. And the two of us could live on minimum wage in a trailer park. And I would be blessed. In the end, it's all about the connections we have to those we love. It's about crawling into bed with the one you love. It's about crashing on your sister's couch on your way to an interview. It's about walking with me in the rain to the library after class. It's about reaching out to discover that others are reaching out to you.

It's about all of you who have crossed my path, walked alongside me, and even ran smack into me and knocked me on my ass ... thank you. It's about you.

Poetry

2009-04-04T00:03:00.001-04:00

Sliced my thumb instead of an onion today. It did not thrill me. I like to think this shows that I may not be as cool as Sylvia Plath, although potentially more stable. I always preferred Elm to Cut anyway. "I know the bottom she says, I know it with my great taproot. It is what you fear. I do not fear it, I have been there."

That was the first poem I ever properly analyzed. I remember being amazed that I could write so much about so little. I went over on pages and still only wrote about half the poem. It was the first class I took from Dave Stanley at Westminster. He was my advisor and I think the only other class I took from him was a May Term class on American Folk Music. It's his fault I saw and fell in love with Mariza and I will always be grateful to him for that.

I was at Mariza's Carnegie Hall debut. People were standing up dancing in the aisles. At one point she sang a song that included the Portuguese word for kiss and all the sudden the crowd made this huge kissing noise all together. You know the sound. (I just made it to try and figure out ow to describe it - and now I have a dog trying to climb on my lap because he thinks I called him.) Anyway, after the kissy noise Mariza stopped singing and said, "My Portuguese friends, what are you doing? Do you know where you are? You are at THE CARNEGIE HALL!" Numerous kissy noises followed and after laughing she composed herself and continued singing.

When she came out for her encore she tested the acoustics of Carnegie Hall by singing acapella, at one point even turning to face the back of the stage, and her voice carried through the building. We were a few balconies up and had no problem hearing every nuance.

I thought this was going to be a post about taproots and atrocities of sunsets. I'm glad I was wrong. It's better to let the stories tell themselves in their own time.

Time hurries on...

2009-03-27T06:05:00.001-04:00

I'm not quite certain how it got to be the end of March already, but the end of March it is and here I sit anticipating April in all her cruelty. I'm not certain how it works for other folks, but for me - at this moment in my life - April is the November of Spring semester without Thanksgiving break. It's the time when final papers must move beyond the vague contemplative stage and into the doing some sort of research to lead to getting concrete words on paper.

I turned in one proposal (Discussing Derrida's use of margins to illuminate his discussion of Woman in Nietzsche from Spurs) on Monday. I meet with that prof on Tuesday to discuss my proposal and get advice for further work. Which I could use because the proposal is 5 pages and the 30 page final version of the paper is due April 28th.

I will be turning in another proposal tomorrow, a preliminary proposal for pretend research project on the treatment of gender and non-heterosexual couples in abstinence only education curricula that receive government funding. The final iteration of the proposal is due May 11th, but I have to present it on May 1st.

Before then I have a paper on female authority in Emma due (April 6th, I believe) and a proposal of a final paper on one of 5 Jane Austen novels. What has not already been said about Jane Austen, I ask you? The other day I happened up a book at the library titled Jane Austen and her Gentlemen, so I grabbed it with not real interest but just so I have a book to fall back on. That final paper doesn't have an official due date, but I have decided to aim for fial exam day (May 4th) with a back up date of May 11th when I will be on campus for my research project proposal.

Somehow it's less intimidating when I realize it fits into these few paragraphs.

Why it matters that Nietzsche forgot his umbrella

2009-03-16T21:45:00.001-04:00

But, it must not be forgotten, it is also an umbrella. ~Spurs, Jacques Derrida

Nietzsche's notes were published after his death. Unfinished thoughts, half fragments of ideas ... all published. Included a note in the margin that said, "I have forgotten my umbrella."

What a joke, some have said. Too bad they couldn't find his shopping list, others bantered. What a waste of ink, has been the general sentiment.

Indulge me before giving breath to your witty addition to these critiques. Hesitate a moment with me...

The umbrella is that which must not be forgotten. It is a note in written in the margins, that managed to be included in the text. And yet, it has only been written because the umbrella has been forgotten. It is precisely because the umbrella has been forgotten that we can and must remember it. It never was outside the text. It was written with the same ink, upon the same page as the rest. Who are we to determine its legitimacy based solely on spatial relations, on location?And yet, we are so quick to do so.

This is the way it is with margins. It is what has already been forgotten that we must remember, recognize as within the text, for it too is an umbrella.

Life is the detour death makes passion take

2009-03-11T11:17:00.001-04:00

Tuesday was a good day. I learned that you can be blacklisted within the academy, to the point of being unhirable for forty years and counting, and still be respected/famous/feared enough that other people will wash your panties by hand if you just agree to stay with them and speak at their institution. How can I take myself seriously in light of such absurdity?

Truth is, I have everything I need. I have amazing families ... the one I was born into, the one I married into, the one I am building with Craig. I get to pursue my dream job, even though the path is not exactly as I planned it. If my life went as I planned, I would be a professor already ... but I would also be the crazy dog lady.

The greatest blessings in my life... none of them were part of my plan. They are things that have disrupted my plan and changed my path. I'm am grateful for the things that have not turned out how I planned.

So I've decided not to rail against the injustice of the new bumps in the road. I will still plan as best I can, but I'm going to try not to cling to the plan. I don't know which PhD program will be best for me, but the competition will be stiff for all of them so I'm just going to apply to all of them within commuting distance.

In the end, whether I get my PhD in English, Comparative Lit, or Women's and Gender Studies ... I will be able to read, write, and force others to do the same for the rest of my life. Which is what I wanted in the first place.

This is not a detour from my life. The detour is part of my life, a life for which I am extremely grateful, a life that has turned out better than I ever imagined and it just keeps getting better.

This path may be take longer ... but the scenic route is always worth it.

But I just got here...

2009-03-08T23:15:00.001-04:00

Last semester I was on the end of a rope, clinging for dear life just to survive. It was like a horror film where you just keep running because something evil is crashing up behind you through the field. Although you don't know where you are going, you know that if you stop that's it. The evil will catch you and you will be finished. The evil that chases me is failure.

This semester is more Alfred Hitchcock, master of suspense style. There's something unsettling about the whole thing. The initial things that startle you turn out to be nothing, harmless shadows. But the shadows you can't quite discern, the strange moments of silence, these leave you on edge. It may look safe, but failure is plotting against you.

Even as I stand here, uncertain of whether or not I have managed to get both feet solidly on the ground, it's time to begin looking for new ground. And I want to scream "But I just got here!" How can I move ahead when I haven't finished here yet?

I don't know where I want to go for a PhD. I don't know what I want to make my area of concentration - that's why I am doing the MA first. Do I really want to get swept up in the insanity that is The Academy? Or would I rather teach at a quiet community college with a beach nearby? Am I selling myself short if I don't work my absolute hardest at the most difficult subjects? Or I am forcing myself to do things I don't really want to just to prove I can?

Yes, I love theory - but writing theory is excruciating. It's like going through labor pains to give birth to a baby you know the world will misunderstand and abuse. On the other hand, using theory to write about literature is fun... but to what end? People are starving in this world... and I can show similarities between a poem and the Book of Esther.

My idealism is colliding with my selfish desire for comfort. Is this the part where I become disillusioned? Or is it just mid-term?

Not quite a bloody teapot... but there are similarities

2009-03-02T22:13:00.001-05:00

I had a terrible nightmare the other night. I was going with Craig to a horror film. (I've developed a real aversion to scary movies lately, complete will feeling anxious about the movie as we drive to the theater... Concerned that images will be burned in my mind forever that I never wanted to see the first time around.)

Anyway, the movie theater had plush red seats and there were black skulls on some of the seats. After we chose our seats, I got up to go to the bathroom and the movie was starting. I saw someone I knew on the way to the bathroom and she kept escaping my field of vision saying "Just keep walking - don't see me, don't see me." There are no lights on in the bathroom so I leave the hallway door open ... it reminds me of a school bathroom and I just want to get back to my seat and have the movie be over. As I leave the bathroom I see a small child shaped shadow in the darkness behind me. It fades and then comes back, fades and then comes back and I just know I have to get back to the theater and pretend I didn't see her.

I get to the theater and my sister is cleanng up a seat in the theater where one of the black skulls has been crushed. She tells me it broke when a woman was raped in the chair. I ask where the woman was and my mother shows up to tell me it's okay - the woman is with some nurses and my mom is part of the staff. She then points at the wall which becomes a wall of windows that separates the theater from a room that looks like a cross between an ER and a morgue. It's very white and the woman on the table is black. A cop walks into to look at the woman and I realize simultaneously that she is his sister and she is dead. He looks at her face and you can see it sink it. His whole body trembles as he doubles over and begins to vomit.

I look around the theater and realize this is not disturbing anyone but me. I get this sense that it's not safe to speak out here and if I try to leave the theater now "They" will silence me. The best thing I can do is make it to the end of the movie alive and leave pretending that it was all just a movie. I can't share the woman's story if I die in the theater.

I sit down, wrap both of my arms around Craig's arm, ralize I am shaking uncontrollably and wake up.

SNOW DAY!!!

2009-03-01T22:48:00.001-05:00

It's snowing. Apparently it's not going to stop for 15 hours or something absurd like that. I find it very difficult to go to bed at a reasonable hour when I know I don't have to go to school tomorrow. I want to stay up all night being silly with someone who also won't be leaving the house tomorrow. Unfortunately Satanbank does not believe in snow days so Craigory will be getting up for work in four hours. If Craig could have a snow day I would wake him up and insist that we light a fire in the woodstove, make hot chocolate and tell stories all night.

Instead, I will play with the photos I just imported to my pooter. This will probably result in another slideshow of family pictures on my YouTube channel.

I may also spend some time getting acquainted with my new Vertigo Tarot deck. We've not had a chance to talk yet.

New Toy

2009-02-26T22:19:00.001-05:00

I've been playing for about a month on my new computer. I bought a MacBook Pro (I know, I know, such a Bobo) and the truth is I think it is wonderful.

Yesterday I ignored homework by teaching myself the basics in iMovie and discovered, quite back accident, that it takes next to nothing for me to post to YouTube. So, I started posting slideshows of family pics and other nonsense as a way to share them with my family with minimal effort on my part.

Today I discovered the blogger widget that I've now installed on my dashboard. I can blog without even opening a browser. This may or may not result in more blogs, I'm uncertain as this time and hesitant to make any promises that I may not keep.

Anyway, I have a new toy and I am using it to avoid homework. This very instant actually. I have a book review/report due tomorrow on Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. The problem is that the assignment calls for a 1-2 page summary of a 200 page book... most of which is spent explaining the theorists Butler will use as starting points for her own theory - which she finally elucidates around page 175. Turns out that's why all the anthologies only excerpt that part of the book. Anyway, since most of the class is not familiar with feminist theory or the (mostly postmodern) theorists she engages with in the text - I'm really not sure how to do this in a way that will benefit anyone. I would like to say "Butler does a Derridean reading of Foucault, in which she deconstructs gender by exposing its performative nature and asserting that identity is never fixed, always already a construction and yet in a constant state of being constructed." To say anymore is to engage in an entire course study.

January Girl

2009-01-24T01:14:00.006-05:00

January. Stern, forboding, and unforgiving. Mistakes cannot be buried in the frozen earth. Prayers cannot reach heaven when they freeze on your lips. He'd have you believe time has stopped, that the Winter Solstice's promise was empty... that this tundra is eternal.

The others know better and if you are their child they reassure you. He too will pass. July's lusty blood coursing through your veins heats you. October's breath of burning leaves warms each inhalation you take. Even February promises roses in the winter. April may mock, mixing a pain with every pleasure. March demands a lion for every lamb. But January does not make deals and he will not negotiate.

To be a child of January is to feel the marrow slow in your bones. It is to be the offspring of an uncomsummated marriage. You carry the weight of mourning the unloved bride as she passes. Not out of love. Not out of sorrow. Out of knowing it must be done. He chills you throughout the year, even in July your toes get cold. But that is nothing compared to when you return to his house.

It's not depression, just resignation that only a daughter of January can shoulder this burden. She knows the cost of warmth. The cracking, melting, and vunerable exposing of all that's hidden. She knows January is not without love. His love melts glaciers. But it only takes one degree above freezing to melt ice and January is not one for wasting energy.

Black Dove

Whining

2008-11-29T17:29:00.006-05:00

I feel so behind.

Monday my paper on Christina Rossetti and Esther is due. the whole class has been given an extension - which I will be taking advantage of since I have spent my whole week focusing on the paper due on Tuesday. the paper due on Tuesday is supposed to be an examination of Gloria Anzaldua, deconstruction, and queer theory. I don't even have an outline. Every time I think I have an approach, I realize that I can't sustain it for 15 pages or it has been done numerous times before I got onto the scene. The pressure to come up with something new is insane. How can I possibly, in the course of one semester - my first semester at grad school - read all that has been written on a subject and come up with a novel approach to it?

It took all week just to sort through one-third of Dissemination. I feel like my brain is a practice in deconstruction. Every grasp at meaning reveals the impossibility of grasping meaning. I used to doze off to sleep with fantasies of presenting papers at conferences, publishing essays that would enlighten and infuriate, and other delusions of grandeur. Now I doze off dreaming a glimpse of insight, a well formed thesis sentence, and other delusions of adequacy. Apparently, I told Craig in my sleep "If you offer a kid a nickel for farting, the kid will shit himself."

That's my brilliant insight.

Plus I managed to get a really nasty computer virus, trojan, eat all my files, and email everyone I know thing on my computer. I have been working on removing it since 10:30 am today. It is now 6 pm. I am using Craig's laptop right now to try and get some homework done. Do not open any emails from me today. I didn't send them - the computer nasty did.

Insomnia makes me older, not wiser ... but I'm learning to make tiramisu

2008-11-16T04:28:00.005-05:00

I've managed to seriously mangle my sleeping patterns over the past week. I wish Craig's job would hurry up and switch to days. Then there would be incentive to going to bed at a reasonable hour. Left to my own devices I have quickly devolved back to the unhealthy undergrad habits of my youth? Maybe not youth, but younger than I am now.

My husband has begun growing white whiskers in his beard and just last week I discovered a couple of white hairs on his noggin. I wonder if I will be able to tell when my hair color starts to change. There are so many different colors in it now. Best as I can tell,no white or grey yet. But I do have some wrinkles. They are around my lips and around my eyes. I believe this means I have smiled and laughed so much in my life that the joy is becoming permanent. Wrinkles and grey hairs are the involuntary tattoos, serving as "mile markers, map[ping] the distance I have come, winning some, losing some."

Random school updates:

My presentation went well. I focused only on Nietzsche and at one point said, "Well yes, having your nose fall off will certainly alter your world view." Also responded to a professor's comment about his happy relationshio with, "Well, he had to get syphilis somewhere." I may not have gotten an "A" but I had a good time, people seemed to understand, and I followed Jen's advice and did not hump anyone.

The Christina Rossetti revised proposal is in draft form, to be polished tomorrow.

The second version of the paper on Transphobic Violence has only been touched upon, but is due Wednesday. [insert your favorite expletive here]!

The next big school assignment will be a French Feminist interpretation of Goblin Market, a poem sort of like Stardust but with more incestously lesbianic relationships... woohoo!

Oh, and not school related and perhaps more intimidating... I've been asked to make tiramisu for Thanksgiving this year. Crazy Italian family I married into wants tiramisu for Thanksgiving. What happened to pumpkin pie? I can rock pumpkin pie! I've never made tiramisu before. If I do a terrible job I may be asked to bring mashed potatoes next year... hmmm.

Faith in a New Tribe

2008-11-08T15:05:00.003-05:00

This song has been playing in my mind constantly since the election. Let the Sun Shine In!

From the movie:

Death of the Author

2008-11-06T22:28:00.005-05:00

Blogging is odd now. All I do is go to school or do vaguely school related things most of the time. As I type this, I'm aware in the back of my mind that it was less than a week ago that I was in Springfield, MA with Maren and Mel - but it feels like it's been months. The fact that the pumpkin in the living room is still orange and now black with mold is proof that it probably was only two weeks that Erin, Anna, Rosemary, and Mary came to visit... but it feels incredibly hard to believe.

I am working on:
~ a second version of a paper on violence against the transgender community
~ a revised proposal for a paper on allusions between Christina Rossetti's poem "A Royal Princess" and The Book of Esther
~ a paper on Derrida and Queer Theory - with a focus on deconstructing Gloria Anzaldua texts and the invisibility of bisexuality in Queer Theory (the abstract for which reads too much like a Norton anthology, according to my professor)
~ a presentation on Truth, Sex, and Object in Foucault, Nietzsche, Barthes, and Butler
~ a presentation on a French feminist interpretation of Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"

This is in addition to my regular, weekly reading and assignments.

There's only about a month left in the semester. I have to start thinking about next semester now. I know I'm taking a class called "Feminist Research and Methods". I'm going to request permission to take a "Feminism and Deconstruction" class in the PhD program. For my last class, it's a toss up between Shakespeare and Jane Austen. One professor is visiting from another school and the other is the head of the English dept. at Rutgers-Newark.

The body can be read like a text, just like the text can be read like a body. The gaps in meaning, like the gaps in a garment, are equivalent sites of pleasure. ~Roland Barthes

It's not that I bit off more than I could chew...

2008-10-15T20:01:00.005-04:00

It's more that I tried to stuff the whole thing in my mouth and then pretend I wasn't walking around like this guy.

So, I just turned in what could be the worst paper of my life. Lucky for me class was cancelled, which gave me a bit more time since I could submit it via email and not have to drive 45 minutes to turn it in. May not seem like much, but it allowed me to go from two pages of crap to five pages of vaguely tied together crap. I expect to be asked to rewrite the paper. Which I will worry about later.

I am grateful that the one real paper I have due next week is on Derrida... ahh, familiar territory. I also have a paper proposal due for Victorian poetry. If I've learned anything this past week, it's to stick with what I know right now. So, rather than heading off on an excursion for information about Oscar Wilde's mother and the poetry she wrote under the name "Speranza", or digging through poetry anthologies to find references to Sappho after the "poetesses" reduced her life to her death, instead I will deal with Biblical allusion in Christina Rossetti's poetry. Women and the Bible are also familiar territory.

Anyway, I'm off to do homework in the hopes of preventing a repeat of this week's paper tragedy.

If my brain explodes...

2008-10-14T09:56:00.002-04:00

Blame theory.

One breath at a time

2008-10-09T00:58:00.004-04:00

I am struggling. I had two papers due for school this week. I only completed them both because the professor gave the whole class a two day extension. I feel like I have been tossed into ice cold water and although I honestly do know how to swim, I can't remember how because I'm having trouble breathing. I am especially having trouble with a research paper for my feminist theory class. It seems like every time I come up with a topic I like, I find that someone else has already explored the idea and I don't know the next step, the next question. Maybe I need some tutoring on how to conduct research... I'm not exactly certain what (other than more sleep and more hours in each day) I need, but I have decided to make appointments with each of my professors and tell them I fell lost at sea.

At the same time, I see no one has yet published my the idea I wrote in a paper on Coraline in college. Unfortunately, I've lost my original. But I think I'm going to see about addressing it again.

Hmmm.....

2008-09-30T23:25:00.004-04:00

Today, as I drove home from my Literary Theory class like a giddy fool I realized something. I really do like Literary Theory... it wasn't just that I had a crush on Fatima during undergrad.

Although, now that I think about it, my current professor kinda reminds me of Fatima.

Verbosity

2008-09-28T02:39:00.004-04:00

I keep staying up too late. But I finally got all my reading done before Monday afternoon, so whose to say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing? Tomorrow I have to complete a rather laborious assignment regarding Tennyson's In Memoriam and submit some Literary Theory questions about theories of Modernity as presented by Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Adorno... all three made me spit coffee or tea across the room in geeky giggle fits. Did you know Baudelaire was expelled from high school for swallowing a note from a schoolmate rather than surrender it to the teacher? He was obviously tainted at the root, hence the growth of evil flowers.

In case you were wondering, I haven't lost touch with the world at large completely. I remembered about the start time of the presidential debate about halfway through and watched them with Craig. As much as I was frustrated to watch Obama continously be the "nice guy" and "take the high road" and I was very aware that he cannot get upset... he would not be interpreted as a validly upset individual, he would be perceived as the "angry black man" myth/stereotype. I wish I could say that I thought I was being paranoid.

In other world at large events, I am acutely aware of the fact that Craig works for a large banking corporation. Luckily for us, it appears that his bank is large and evil enough to be staying afloat at the moment. It looks like he will be moving to a day shift that is either a lateral shift or a promotion, not sure yet. I'm hoping for a promotion since a move to a day shift will mean we lose his 10% shift differential. Whatever happens, it's a good thing we moved to a smaller, cheaper place. Even if we do have lizards and frogs sneaking in trying to steal dog food and pooping on my floor.

And he most exciting news of all... we're finaly getting a couch tomorrow. It's exceedingly formal, French, and gold - but luckily there are bizarre chairs to match! Woohoo! Now I can invite people over without wondering if I should invite them into the bedroom so they can have a place to sit. Not that I really see anyone anymore anyway - but still, one less anxiety. More importantly, I will not have to choose between rocking chair, floor, and dogbed when I want to read in the living room. I feel like such a grown up. I guess that's what happens when you start to approach your 30th birthday. [Consider yourself warned - partying will commence 1.9.09 so best make any necessary travel plans now.]

Anti-Palin Rally in Alaska

2008-09-21T10:48:00.004-04:00

Apparently, the local conservatist talk radio host mentioned the rally and called the organizers "socialist baby killing maggots" before giving out their home phone numbers over the air for people to call and harass.

They got back at him by having over 1400 people show up at the local library with handmade signs. I am particularly fond of "Hockey Mama for Obama" and "God's will is NOT a foreign policy."

Just thinking...

2008-09-20T18:54:00.004-04:00

One of the side effects of school is that I think more. When I was working, I didn't really think a whole lot - I just did. But now, in every moment of silence a new thought pounces into my head like Tigger. The other day it went like this...

"Re-label the boxes that aren't unpacked so you can read them from the side. Okay, that's done. Hey, you forgot to label the dogs. Hmm... can't really write on dogs with a Sharpie, but you can color Max's shoulder. Where's Thea? She might look pretty with clown make up." At this point, Craig interrupted with "Why does Thea look embarassed? You know, boredom in you is a dangerous thing. Don't you have homework you should be doing that doesn't involving torturing the dogs?"

Some thoughts are more academic than others. I just can't think of any examples right now.

Puttering along

2008-09-08T15:40:00.004-04:00

The house is slowly getting organized and unpacked. Craig completely busted his ass on Thursday and Friday to get things in shape for Maren & Mel to come visit. We were going to go see HAIR on Saturday - Craig and I even got up a 3:30 am to go sit in line for tickets. But tropical storm Hanna changed our plans. Instead we went to Jose Tejas for lunch/dinner and played Trivial Pursuit. Have I mentioned how much I love that they are only a few hours away?

We bought a new dryer last week. It was a discontinued model from Fisher & Paykel. Apparently it normally costs close to $1000... for a dryer? Craziness. We found it on clearance for $450 with a two year warranty. It's a very boring, plain white thing that I originally thought was a freezer. I'm excited to have a dryer that works because hanging clothes to dry outside in the winter doesn't quite work in New Jersey and using a dryer that takes an average of two hours per article of clothing to dry is not a real option for me.

People are coming Wednesday to being replacing the floor in the bathroom upstairs. I think they believe they will just be replacing the tiles and maybe the subfloor. I have a sneaking suspiscion that it will entail much more than that. I think there are years upon years worth of water damage under that floor, to the point that it's not really structurally sound anymore. I could be wrong, stranger things have happened, but I'm not hopeful. I'm just glad I am renting. :)

Anyway, I'm off to school for my Victorian Poetry class. I think this will be my least favorite class this semester, which makes me a theory geek.

Back in the Saddle

2008-09-03T21:29:00.003-04:00

Wow.
We moved on Saturday.
School started Tuesday.

It has been non-stop adventure in the new house. Keep in mind, we are renting and the landlords just bought the place. They were ignorant of these issues and have been VERY responsive to doing whatever needs to be done to resolve things. Having said that, so far we have dealt with:
*Mushrooms growing out of a wall
*Both toilets clogging
*The upstairs toilet overflowing, water running down the slanted floor, into the hallway, down the stairs, seeping through the floor and dripping out of the living room ceiling
*The floor beneath the toilet needing to be replaced due to water damage, implying a chronic overflow problem
*A clothes dryer that can only dry 4 articles of clothing at a time, and takes 4-6 hours to do that
*A four foot tall fridge with a small icebox and mini-fridge with no icebox in place of a real, full-sized fridge
*A stove/oven that doesn't work
*And a spider colony living in the back shed that descends upon me in droves when I try to use the grill

Keep in mind we moved in less than a week ago.

School is much better. I've got about 500 pages worth of reading to get done by Monday for two classes. I won't even attend the first class until Monday. The syllabus for Graduate Literary Theory looks mostly familiar, I've read a large portion of the texts in other courses or just for fun. I'm also quite excited for my Feminist Theory class. The professor makes me smirk, which I consider to be a good sign, and there seems to be an interesting mix of students in the small class of 14. the class I haven't attended yet is my escape class. It's a Victorian Literature and Culture class that will be focusing on poetry. I've already been reading Christina Rosetti as brain candy.

Damn, it feels good to be back. As you probably imagine, the Rutgers-Newark campus is quite different from the Westminster Campus in a variety of ways. But I feel in my element in the classroom. I really hope to find people to sit around and geek out over theory with me. I have told Craig he needs to read my homework assignments and be prepared to discuss them with me. He's agreed, so long as he has the time. But he has a real distaste for literary theory, especially that whole "Death of the Author" bit, so I don't know how long he will play along. regardless, he gets points for playing at all.

Anyway, I'm going to put the dogs to bed and take a bath with Frankenstein. I hope your night is also enjoyable.

Ten Years

2008-08-26T19:09:00.000-04:00

Has it really been ten years? Ten years since I saw your face, held your hand, kissed your forehead? A full decade has passed, a third of my life.

I feel like I can never do enough with the time I have... Every year I wonder, what have I done with this year that I have not spent with you? I am doing the best I can, I honestly believe that this year. I have been to college, I started on your first birthday. If not for you, I don't know when I would have gotten around to it. I have graduated college. I have moved across the country. I have fallen in love and gotten married. Very soon I will start graduate school. I had hoped to have done so much more, be so much more ahead. But this life is not a race, it's an uncharted obstacle course and nobody knows how much time they will get.

It's tough to hold this balance, between missing you and not regretting. I know you are loved and happy. I don't regret giving you the family that I could not provide. But I still miss you.

Make it RAINN

2008-08-19T18:09:00.001-04:00

I'm reposting below a message I received from RAINN about RAINN Day 2008 on college campuses. Please consider participating.

DID YOU KNOW THAT COLLEGE-AGE WOMEN ARE FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED??

That's why it's SO important to join in the fight against sexual violence on college campuses!

RAINN Day is RAINN's annual campaign to stop sexual assault on college campuses. Students and volunteers raise awareness through fundraising and educational events, volunteer drives, speakers, petitions, posters, and passing out RAINN Day cards and volunteer handouts.

RAINN Day 2008 will be Thursday, September 25th, and we hope to make this year BIGGER AND BETTER than ever!

To sign up for RAINN Day 2008, all you have to do is click on the link (http://rainn.org/order-materials), fill out your contact information, and we will send you the number of cards you requested!

For more information or questions about RAINN Day 2008, email rainnday@rainn.org.

**Please repost this in any groups, college organizations, fan sites etc., so we can get as many people involved as possible all over the U.S.!!**

Shpadoinkle

2008-07-27T10:58:00.002-04:00

I'm thrilled to have been accepted to Rutgers - I even drove down to hand in my Admissions Acceptance Form in person. I kind of hoped I would be able to get a few other things taken care of at the same time. Things like, figure out my monthly tuition bill, register for classes, figure out what books I'm going to need... all the things I relate to the beginning of semester. I was able to hand in my form, that's about it.

The Admissions office said it will take about two weeks before I am able to register, because they are behind on processing the forms. In the mean time, EVERY SINGLE course for the English MA program is full and closed to new registrations. So even if I could register - there are no classes. I talked to the director of the English program and she directed me to some other departments where there are potential cross over classes that I can take for elective credit. She also recommended that I see if there are classes in PhD program I want to take and then email the professors for permission. There are a couple of classes there I would really LOVE to take - like Islam & African Women Writers and Gender, Race, and Empire - so I sent the emails and am back to waiting for replies. It's kind of intimidating to start my first semester of an MA program in the PhD classe.

This whole getting into grad school thing has been rather anti-climactic. I think I'll finally get ecstatic and start dancing like a monkey after the first week of class. I hope so.

The good news is that I have rediscovered Cannibal! The Muscial. Shpadoinkle!

Updates

2008-07-20T20:46:00.004-04:00

We gave our television away on Friday. In part because it was too damn heavy to keep moving around and in part because I don't need an easy distraction from homework. I'm happy the TV is gone, but I'm also very aware that football season is just around the corner. When we move I must find the closest farmer's market, public library, and sports bar.

I got my official Rutgers letter, which was exciting. Then I tried to register for classes and it said all the classes are full, which is also exciting but in a slightly panicky kind of way. I'm going into my old job to train my replacement for a few hours tomorrow. Tuesday I'm off the the Jersey DMV and the VW dealership for Eliot's oil change. Wednesday I hope to meet with the director of the English program at Rutgers, register for classes, buy books, and generally find my way around a little bit. Part of me wants to wait for Thursday and make Craig come with me, partly because I'm nervous and partly because I want to include him in my proud moments.

This weekend TWP & George will be in town, so I've kept my schedule as open as possible to hang out whenever it works for their schedule.

We also may have found a house. Craig is working out the move in date details - they want us in asap, we have a lease here through Aug 31 - I'll let you know if it becomes official. It's a small, cheap house with lake access and a mostly fenced in backyard. It's not ideal, but it will do for a couple of years while I'm in school.

When I graduated from Westminster I had this fear that I would receive a letter in the mail informing me that a mistake had been made, I didn't work hard enough in school, and did not actually earn my degree so it was going to be revoked. I had always planned on being a college graduate, but it was kind of like those "BIG" birthdays - I didn't feel any different, it was just another day.

Last week I was checking my Rutgers application status to see if my last letter of recommendation had been submitted. (It hadn't - still hasn't - but I spoke with the professor and he promised it will be there by end of day today, since it's due tomorrow.) The application status page has a little box labelled, "Decision" which had said "No decision" ever since I submitted my application. But last week it changed. Last week it said "You have been recommended for admission."

Recommended? To whom? By whom? Craig suggested we celebrate. I suggested that was bad luck before I actually got an acceptance letter. Then I called Tits McGee and my sister, to see if they thought it was bad luck. Tits said, "Your ass is in - go celebrate!" and Bear said, "It's a loophole, in case they find out you killed five students or faked your credentials. And since that's such a strong possibility, you're right you shouldn't celebrate."

We went to Cathryn's in Cold Spring and had an amazing meal... shrimp with gorgonzola wrapped in proscuitto, fig stuffed quali wrapped in pancetta... Mmm. They didn't have any pork wrapped desserts so I just had sambuca and espresso.

Rutgers... SQUEEEEEEE!

All for Me

2008-07-09T02:44:00.002-04:00

it's time to take it easy
time to go slow
time to let my soul rest
yeah and let the clock go
I'm gonna let the clock go

hanging on my front porch
sun in my eyes
perfect iced coffee
smiling all over my insides
oh I'm smiling all over my insides

all for me
all for me
all for me
today's all for me

yeah it's one of those days off
when nothing could go wrong
it's me and my heart
just watching the world spin along
we're watching the world spin along

but all these little things seem so big
and life is moments
endings don't exist
and all I thought I knew has come undone
I know that I'm at my best when I'm dumb

and it's all for me
yeah all for me
all for me
all for me

another day slips, the stars show their light
I'm thinking it's crazy that that moon shows up every night
do you believe that moon shows up every night
so to always live in wonder
and to always be a child
to never take for granted all the love that's in my life
ooooh look at all the love in your life

all for me
all for me
all for me
yeah, all for me
yeah, yeah, yeah...
wooh

~Melissa Ferrick

Back to Life

2008-07-08T01:23:00.004-04:00

I don't think there is anything that exhausts me as much as high humidity. It wakes me, sluggish and sticky, throughout the night. It oppresses me as I attempt to walk the dogs through the thick air. It taunts me, holding fibers and hairs, as I sweep the floor, clean the counters, and try to get the house ready to move.

I went into GI today, got my last paycheck, and visited for awhile. I also went to see a townhouse and out for sushi in Jersey with the lovely Alex. Great company, that girl. Decided against the townhouse - but had celebratory sushi and dessert anyway.

I have been trying to bring Craig around to the idea of an apartment or townhouse to save money. The one I saw today was nice, big, great area - all the good stuff. But it was the high end of our price range and a little farther away from Craig's work than I was hoping to spend. Not to mention, the whole area was infested with children. Infested, I tell you. I am afraid that most every townhouse and apartment complex will suffer from the same infestation. Not to the same extent as if we were in Utah, but infestation nonetheless. So - single family house is the goal.

Transitions

2008-06-13T14:39:00.003-04:00

All the bosses were gone today. Except for my boss. So I encourage people to go out for a long lunch - TOGETHER.

It was really nice and now I am beginning to feel the first pangs of sadness about leaving my job. I have worked a lot of places with a lot of different people. This job seems to have the highest "people that inspire me" per capita of any job I have worked so far. I will miss them.

I will also miss the unique opportunities that this job has provided. I've learned about and intereacted with amazing people who are actively making a difference in the world today. In this job, I've bowed to the Dalai Lama and hugged the CEO of Greenpeace... that's pretty cool to an aspiring crunchy hippy type. :)

I have no doubt that it's time to move on in my life. No doubt. But I also know that this was the right place for me for the past eighteen months.

Stories

2008-06-11T22:14:00.003-04:00

There's a story somewhere about an old woman who spends her days sitting on a bench surrounded by weeds. Sometimes people are afraid of her. Sometimes they pity her. Never do they understand her. Although the misunderstanding isn't about her at all. the misunderstanding is that she spends her days, sitting on a bench, surrounded by weeds.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

2008-06-10T15:10:00.002-04:00

Brilliant!

I could refresh that site all day long...

My job goes YouTube

2008-05-23T14:59:00.002-04:00

They posted a few videos from our recent Satyagraha event. It's too bad they haven't been able to put up the video of Odetta singing. That was amazing.

Anyway, if you're curious - you can check out the link below. My favorite speakers were John Francis, Rajmohan Gandhi, Dr. A.T. Ariayatne, and Sulak Sivaraska.

Garrison Institute YouTube page

Whining

2008-05-18T22:22:00.003-04:00

I miss my husband. He's in the middle of working six twelve hour days in a row. I appreciate that it's his "switch" week and this means he will not work another weekend for four months. But right now, in this moment, I really miss him.

I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow. I am hoping my boss will be less mopey about me leaving. I appreciate being valued and all that, but if I was really valued I would have given the opportunity to grow and advance by now. Any outcry is, as BC said, because they are only thinking about themselves. Still, if it were possible, I'd rather not face it.

Time to sleep. I have to be up for booty booty booty camp at 4:00 am tomorrow.

Resignation

2008-05-16T15:02:00.004-04:00

Told my boss today that I'm leaving at the end of June... whether I get into Rutgers or not. It's time for me to move on - life beckons.

P.S. Summer Solstice Soiree at my place on June 21 - email me if you need details!
EDIT: Summer Pre-Solstice Soiree on June 14th. My nephew's graduation party is June 21.

One state at a time....

2008-05-15T15:05:00.003-04:00

Thank you California Supreme Court

Can't work today - my horoscope says so...

2008-05-15T11:15:00.004-04:00

Remember, it's crucial today to allow yourself to waste some time, even if it feels counterproductive.

It must be true - it's from Tarot.com!

For those interested... The Onion said
Maturity is often linked with a greater sense of responsibility, but you'll have to settle for a thick outer skin and deep yellow color.

There's also a little Opinion piece by Atticus Finch, here that I thought would be funny - but really just made me kind of sad.

Literature and butterflies...

2008-05-14T16:53:00.002-04:00

are the two sweetest passions known to man. ~Vladimir Nabokov

I get both today.
What do you get?

Sibling Invasion

2008-05-02T15:35:00.003-04:00

Ally & Quinn fly in tonight. They'll be here until May 13th. We'll be camping (probably in the rain) near Niagara Falls, going to see Young Frankenstein on Broadway, visiting comic book stores, possibly Ellis Island, and just hanging out while they're here.

I don't expect to be blogging during this time - but I am going to try to get back to my moblog on this trip. I put a little linky widget on the sidebar there -->

Every now and then go away,
Have a little relaxation,
For when you come back to your work
Your judgement will be surer;
Since to remain constantly at work
Will cause you to lose power of judgement...

Go some distance away
Because the work appears smaller
And more of it can be taken in a glance,
And a lack of harmony or porportion
Is more readily seen.

~Leonardo DaVinci

She needs your voice, Girl

2008-04-25T05:14:00.005-04:00

The bloody teapot dream returned - sort of - last night. I don't think I ever described the dream here, although I shared it one on one with a few people. I was working at Cornell (debating whether or not to quit actually) when i had the bloody teapot dream.

In the dream, I needed to go through an additional training to advance at Cornell - I needed to show my commitment to and understanding of the medical research being conducted. I was asked to participate in a surgery where the scalp of a "subject" was being pulled back to allow access to the skull. The "subject" was a prisoner or convict. The "subject" was covered in a blue sheet up to "its" neck and "its" face was covered with a white towel. I was given a scalpel in my right hand and told to put my left hand on "its" face to steady myself. I place my fingers lightly on HER forehead (suddenly I knew "it" was a woman) and pressed the scalpel to her skin and began to cut. She began to scream and I realized that she wasn't given any anesthetic because she was a prisoner. My boss started yelling "Hurry, hurry - if you go slowly you're just being cruel!" I dropped the scalpel and ran out of the office.

Once in the hallway, I wanted to keeping running. But I knew no one would believe me without more details - it was Cornell, after all. The was a room at the end of the hall with a window in the door. I walked slowly to the door and peered in, terrified of what I might see. When I looked in I saw someone sitting on a doctor's examination table. All the skin had been removed from his head. His jaw was wired shut and his cheekbones has been smashed. His nose had been cut off and reattached upside down to form a spout. Muscles had been separated from the back of his skull to form a handle. and I thought, "Oh my god, that's what they call a bloody teapot?" Again, I wanted to run - but forced myself to stay planted, to remember every detail, to tell the story accurately enough that someone would have to believe me. I could not be an innocent bystander - I was a witness.

So, that was the bloody teapot dream. The images are seared into my mind, but never returned to my dreams, until last night. I woke up at 3 am having revisited the beginning of the dream. Only this time, I was watching myself. I watched as I took the scalpel, pressed it into the girl's forehead and drew blood. I watched as I froze when she screamed. I watched as I dropped the scalpel and ran out of the office. And then I watched as a man in the office picked up the scalpel and began cutting. I watched as the woman continued to scream beneath the towel. I watched as the man stuffed the towel covering her face into her mouth. I saw her eyes - wide with pain and fear.

And then I heard, "Her screams are being muffled. Her face is being removed. She needs your voice. Do not let her fall away silent and faceless. Scream so someone will hear her." And I woke up.

There is no such thing as an innocent bystander.

To write.

2008-04-22T16:55:00.004-04:00

An act that will not only 'realize' the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasure, her organs, her immense bodily territorities which have been kept under seal; it will tear her away from the super-egoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty (guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being 'too hot'; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and for not having any; for nursing and for not nursing...) - tear her away by means of this research, this job of analysis and illumination, this emancipation of a marvellous text of her self that she must urgently leanr to speak. A woman without a body, dumb, blind, can't possibly be a good fighter. She is reduced to being the servant of the militant male, his shadow. We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman.

~Helene Cixous
The Laugh of the Medusa

It has been said that Nietzsche makes me horny

2008-04-21T11:37:00.003-04:00

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

The word "Christianity" is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

My Magda

2008-04-17T15:50:00.004-04:00

I bought a bike with tax refund money. (Also bought Anniversary plane tickets and Xmas train tickets - Woohoo!) My bike's name is Magda. She is magenta and silver.

And she hurts my butt.

Why I'm still working here...

2008-04-12T09:49:00.006-04:00

Last night I was standing in front of a bus on 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, helping people load up their luggage before attending the opening performance of the Phillip Glass opera, Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera. This performance was the first event in a weekend focused on Satyagraha, Gandhi, non-violent action, and climate change.

I was excited to meet (and re-meet) some of the amazing people who would be attending the opera, but no one as much as Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson and biographer of Mahatma Gandhi. I met him once before at a lunch in college. The lunch was for Honors students, but Dr. Popich extended a special invitation for me to attend. (Something about it be a travesty of justice that I was not an Honors student.)

When Mr. Gandhi approached the bus and introduced himself I said that I recognized him from when he spoke at my college in Utah a few years back. He replied, "Not Westminster College?" I smiled and said, "Actually yes, Westminster College. I attended your talk and was at the Honors luncheon. I particularly appreciate it when you said taht George W Bush was using Words of Mass Destruction." He laughed a little, and happily introduced me to his wife a daughter as "Liz who attended Westminster College and is now working at the Garrison Institute."

It made my night.

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the opera - I did! I thought is was beautiful and the staging is amazing. (I particularly love the puppets!) My boss graciously gave Craig and I tickets to attend the matinee performance next Saturday and I am so excited for Craig to see it. He's such a huge Phillip Glass fan. Plus, all the vocal lyrics come from the Bhagavad Gita which will be another bonus for Craig.

Still, Rajmohan Gandhi made my night.

It's no secret that I haven't been particularly happy in my job lately. I'm overworked and underpaid - but aren't we all? Those are not the things that make me crazy - even if they are the things I complain about most. It's the feeling of stagnation that is intolerable to me. I am thrilled to have been a part of this weekend. But I am also very tired. I am supporting people who are doing great work - but I want to be doing great work... or at least working towards doing great work.

Forward Motion

2008-04-05T14:15:00.004-04:00

Last night my English advisor from Westminster was in my dream. He offered to write me a letter of recommendation.

Today at work, I was speaking with one of the retreat participants I have gotten to know a bit. He works at one of the schools I plan on applying to... assisting graduate students with their teaching. I told him I was planning on applying. He offered to write me a letter of recommendation. I told him I was struggling with my writing sample and statement of purpose. He offered to read them and give me feedback.

I hated Jonathan Livingston Seagull (and not only because I was raised in Utah) but I'm glad I read it for the following two sentences:
When it's wrong, nothing can make it happen.
When it;s right, nothing can stop it.

I should remember that.

Struck

2008-04-04T13:41:00.002-04:00

Just take a closer look
Take a closer look
At what it is that´s really haunting you
I have to trust you´ll know
this digital ghost
But I fear there´s only so much time
´cause the you I knew is fading away
~Tori Amos

My Wasteland Bits

2008-04-01T22:01:00.004-04:00

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life into dried tubers.

SURPRISE has been cancelled

2008-03-28T15:47:00.004-04:00

At least the surprise sister visit. Not enough room on the airplanes this weekend. *sigh*

But that means that Erin will be coming up Saturday and we will be going to the Maple Festival. :D

And... I don't have to get up early after being out until 1:00 am listening to live music and drinking.

Still, it would've been nice....

SURPRISE!

2008-03-28T08:26:00.004-04:00

Craigory plotted for me to leave work early today, so we can drive for Saratoga Springs for live music and beer for our Lunaversary Date. I wasn't supposed to know before he showed up at my work around 3 pm today. I knew he was plotting because nothing happens at my work without me knowing - that's just the way it is - I just didn't know the details of the surprise.

Until I got a call from Maren saying she and Mel will be getting on a plane today to come visit for the weekend - SURPRISE! Since I thought the plot would come to fruition today, I called Craig and let him know - he had to spill the beans. It should all work out though. I think the ladies will be taking the red eye - arriving at 5:45 tomorrow morning, so tonight will go as plotted. Except that I supposed to work until 6 pm to cover phones and I don't think my boss made arrangements to cover that when he told Craig I could leave early.

Tomorrow it's off to Pace University and Western New England to give them both one last look before Maren makes her law school decision. If we're back in time and their schedule allows - we may still be able to have Erin up for Maple Festival on Sunday.

And I thought my weekend would consist of a leisurely trip to a local orchard/beef market and a Maple Festival. SURPRISE!

Happy Birthday War

2008-03-27T19:57:00.001-04:00

Quote Quote Quotey Quote

2008-03-26T16:44:00.003-04:00

In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now. ~Goethe

Have you saved for your cat's retirement?

2008-03-22T12:37:00.002-04:00

http://www.palm-meow.com/Catretirement.html

On at least one of the pages, the creepy cat blinked at me. I recommend turning your speakers off before you visit the page, the music is atrocious.

Retreating

2008-03-21T22:07:00.005-04:00

Regardless of the other issues at hand, I work with a couple dozen really wonderful human beings... and one very sweet (albeit very stinky) dog. Thursday-Friday was a staff retreat. What does the staff of a meditation center do at a sleepover party? Acoustic guitar sing-a-long, late night equinox walks under the almost full moon, and ask me to read their tarot cards of course.

It was a good retreat. The teacher was good at the beginning to keep it at least vaguely secular - but it seemed that once she realized that at least half the staff identifies as Buddhist, she taught more from her own tradition of Shambhala Buddhism. Which isn't a problem in of itself, it just seems that Buddhism is the only thing we get introduced to although we claim to be multifaith. Somehow it's okay for her to talk about what the Buddha said, but I sense that there would be mighty objection to talking about what Christ said - except for in the context that it was often not so different from what the Buddha said.

If you know me, you know I don't identify as Christian. But I would be really interested to attend a teaching from a contemplative Christian. Talk to me about contemplative prayer. Talk to me about how contemplative prayer helps one find guidance to reach out to and assist the disempowered. Remind me that the fundamentalist Christians (just like any fundamentalist) have gotten it fundamentally wrong, from a Christian perspective.

Anyway, I work with mostly great folks. Which is no reason to stay at a job - just reasons to stay in touch.

Trust is...

2008-03-19T15:01:00.006-04:00

Giving someone ever chance to fuck you over.

But betrayal is stealthy. It doesn't ring the doorbell five times to make sure you hear it. Often, it avoids the front door all together. Slipping in through the back door and tainting your surroundings, very subtly at first. You may find yourself asking, "Where did that shadow come from?" or "Was that stain always there and I just never noticed before?" Next thing you know, every step you take is mired in distaste and distrust. You wonder, "How the hell did I let it get to this point?" and "Is it too late to make a fuss about it now, since it's been going on for so long?"

My anger is a tarpit. It's ugly, it stinks, and it will melt your skin if you slip into it. You would never knowingly get close enough to slip in, but I've been getting better at chess. The best you can hope for is a stalemate, I can throw you in from there.

I have nothing to lose. You don't realize and that makes me more dangerous than you could ever imagine. Your arrogance will not allow you to conceal your strategy. You think you have me backed into a corner, but that is not me. That is a sacrifical pawn.

Three months, at most, to checkmate.

3 tattoos & 4 piercings...

2008-02-27T16:40:00.003-05:00

Can't change the fact that I still color within the lines.

That's a bit sad.

It's me who is my enemy

2008-02-26T11:32:00.003-05:00

There's nothing quite like driving around with your younger sister to visit the Law Schools she has applied to - to make you feel like you are wasting your life and intellect as an administrative assistant. Returning to work and finding emails marked with "high importantce" about data entry only intensifies that feeling. Add in a bit of bitterness when you learn that new hires are getting more vacation than you are and you have a recipe for my current state of fury.

It's mostly fury at myself. I am the one who has been selling myself short. I am the one who hasn't yet completed a single application. I am the one who is shitting my pants rather than lifting the seat... so to speak.

Maybe I'll write my statement of purpose instead of finishing the data entry that's sitting on my desk.

Reclamation

2008-02-17T10:49:00.008-05:00

I'm wondering where my creativity went. I hear it sometimes, scuttling across the floor when I'm almost asleep. I can't turn on the light without leaving the bed and I won't put my feet on the floor in case it's not my creativity but perhaps a large spider or an evil possum wearing a lei that's scuttling. (Thanks a lot Allan for burning that image into my brain - it visits me when Craig is working and I am trying to sleep.)

Every once in a while I feel it stirring in my belly. Usually after I've read something particularly well written. But then I get worried that it might be a baby stirring in my belly and I frantically go check the date on the birth control to make sure everything is as it should be, which it invariably is... but by theneither my creativity has gone back to sleep or it was only gas anyway.

I was visiting some of my other blogs recently, all of them "secret" but some more secret than others. I realized that they are full of creativity. This blog used to have have some creativity too, back before I knew who was reading it - before you became my audience, back when I was still writing it for me. Things I wrote were true or not. It didn't matter. I could type the stories I had created in my head as though they had actually happened and didn't receive any phone calls asking about them. I just wrote what I felt like writing and the writing was easy, it may not have been very good but it was easy and it was fun. I wanted to share the true stories as well as the fiction.

But now... well lately my blog has become a place where I check in every once in awhile to say "Hi, I'm still alive. Still happily married with two dogs." I feel like if I make up a story I have to answer for it and that has taken the fun out of blogging. I have thought about ending my blog. Just closing up shop, since it really isn't frequented much anymore, since I don't really post much anymore. but I can't bring myself to do that. I've become attached to my blog.

Instead, I think I will go back to the way I used to do things. This blog is for me. I will only clarify that which I feel like clarifying. I may make up stories and write them as though they are true. I may take true stories and write them as though they are false. And sometimes, I might just say "Hi, still happily married with two dogs." This blog used ot be an outlet for me and outlet that I miss so I'm taking it back.

Consider yourself warned. Words posted on this blog may or may not reflect any reality, mine or otherwise.

2008-02-15T00:29:00.002-05:00

Bear is coming to visit next week. We're going to drive around and visit law schools she has applied to... and I still haven't finished my statement of purpose. I am the queen of procrastination.

I had oral surgery earlier this week. A result of poor dental work done years ago that I paid quite a bit for at the time. Which would make me a bit more angry if I wasn't delightfully doped up at the moment.

I am addicting to etsy.com and mostly addicted to trying to figure out what I could have in my very own etsy store. I have lots of ideas, but I imagine I will only make stuff as long as I am supposed ot be writing my statement of purpose. Or maybe it can work the other way. Maybe I will write my statement of purpose as a way to procrastinate working on etsy projects. Most likely, I'll just blog to avoid doing either - which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing since i haven't been blogging much lately.

This morning I realized that if our dogs get to live the average lifespan of their breed... we'll still have these rotten dogs when Craig is in his 50s. What a strange thought. I wonder if they will be vaguely well behaved by then ... and kind of doubt it.

On a completely different note, I had a second assessment at boot camp last week. Since the beginning of December, I've lost 4 inches off my waist and had a body fat reduction of 4%. Weight loss is slow, but I'm feeling stronger and healthier. And the truth is, health, strength, and endurance are the things I am focusing on - weight loss is just a bonus that happens when you go from unhealthy to healthy.

Anyway, my mouth is throbbing to remind me that it's been a long while since I had a painkiller and I have started cooking - so I should probably steo away from the computer for the moment.

A New Addition

2008-01-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend half on retreat, half working. Craig spent the whole weekend working on the house and other domestic things. The most important task he had this weekend was to pick up Eliot and bring him home.

Eliot is my new rabbit, by which I mean Rabbit. I love him. We went out to play for a couple hours last night and it made me miss long drives to Tooele and the people who agreed to let me take them with me. There's lots of NY state that I haven't explored yet, but with my birthday GPS Navigation system - I'm set to explore away.

Road trip anyone?

It's the Little Things

2008-01-09T02:26:00.000-05:00

I could handle getting smacked with a 2x4 once much better than getting a sliver or two every couple of days.

I have had my 1994 Honda Civic since 2005. It has over 155,000 miles - largely influenced by ten months of communting 150 miles/day 5 days/week. I think I offended s/he recently by finally choosing a name. I have always consider the Civic to be a transition car and one night it came to me... my car's name should be Tranny.

Since this naming, Tranny has pretended to have a cracked windshield, started rubbing the mudguard to the front left wheel, and refusing to accelerate on even the slightest incline. Today, Tranny made a loud statement and has not shut up since. Definitely a hole in the exhaust somewhere, but the vibrations in the floor board lead me to believe the hole is closer to the engine than the tailpipe.

Prior to the naming, Tranny has been perma-winking, even after spending over $1000 to replace the entire headlight - not just the lightbulb, everything. She's also been sliding across the road like she was wearing slippers on a recently waxed hardwood floor. Her tire tread is okay, just not all weather - so all four need ot be replaced. And she's been off-balance lately, leaning to the left a little more each day.

I could handle having a tree fall on my car. It would be declared a total loss and I would have no choice but to get a new car. But these little things, that savings could probably cover, make me feel like I should stick it out longer. Especially since I don't have enough in savings to buy a car outright and I am uncomfortable adding another monthly bill right now.

I'm really not sure what the best option is right now... I just know I'll need my car by Monday.

How Easy We Forget

2008-01-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

So I've been doing this Adventures in Boot Camp thing since early December. 1 hour a day, 5 days a week. I've been on break since right before Christmas and just started up again today. I am pleasantly surprised that I am not as sore as I expected.

It's funny how easily I forget the effect that not being active has on my moods. Last week I was grumpy - the grumpiest I can remember being in a long time. It was only as I was walking the dogs this morning, happily wandering along, that I recognized the role not exercising had played in my sourness.

It's common sense. Like - if you don't want a sugar/caffeine crash then don't have a coffee with 10 sugars for to wash down a cheese danish breakfast. No shit.

I'm not certain when I'll next forget these things. Probably when Maren comes out to visit and we spend a week in the car, driving around to look at the law schools she applied to ... so February.

Regardless, it's nice to remember now.

New Year - No New Resolutions

2008-01-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

Any resolutions I have now, I had last year. Some of them are listed below:

I resolve to get a passport, once I clear up that whole warrant(s) business. I resolve to apply to graduate school. I resolve to take advantage of the many opportunities for self-improvement & progress in my life. I resolve to try very hard not to take anyone for granted. I resolve to walk my puppies more - for their health and my own. I resolve to be kind & compassionate, as much as possible, especially with myself. I resolve to update my driver's license so I stop getting summoned for jury duty in Queens.

May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be safe from harm
May you live with ease
~Metta Meditation

77,000 Square ft of old monastery to myself

2007-12-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

I am the only person working in an office today. Housekeeping, maintainence, and those folks are here. But I am the only desk jockey that didn't schedule today off or call in sick. I think that means that I am in charge.

As I was typing this, my boss came in to say he came in to check in with me and then he will be going back home and work from there today. I told him that I am in charge and he looked rather frightened about that. :)

I think today I am going to try and finish up my "Statement of Purpose" for my graduate school applications. I am having a hard time finding a balance between "I am arrogant" and "Take pity on me, life hasn't been easy." Blech. I also need to be in touch with the folks I want to write letters of recommendation for me. I feel like a schmuck, because I've contacted them about grad school in the past, but never actually applied. I'm the girl who cried grad school.

On an entirely different note, my phone is lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine. Craig's phone has been having seizures, so we changed service providers and got new phones this weekend. However, since my phone ran off like a little whore - I no longer have most of the phone numbers that I used to have. So, send me your phone number please. Otherwise I cannot be held responsible for not being in touch. My phone number has not changed.

I could sleep for days....

2007-12-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

Craigory & I went to see November on Saturday for our Lunaversary and then ate dinner at Tokyo La Men... which was the restaurant we ate at the night we first met. [Insert sighs and gagging noises here] While talking about the different things we remembered from that first night, Craig admitted that he thought I had conspired with Erin & Tami to hide my phone then ask Craig to call it to find it - so I would get his phone number. I wish I could take credit for that clever plot, but it was Erin & Tami co-conspiring for the first time.

On Monday, we went to Ma Wilkey's house for ham, lasagna, cookies, and other sundries. Tammy got us a few post-it notes (I LOVE POSTIES!!) and The Simpsons Movie. I'm still a bit concerned that Craig will figure out how to get Thea to leave muddy pawprints on the ceiling whil he sings "Spiderdog" - but I suppose that's one of the hazards of marrying someone with "childlike joy" and all that shit. ;)

We listened in on the joy of unwrapping white elephant gifts at Saudi ... which could never replace being there. This is the second Christmas in row we have spent out here and Craig was at work, so I was kind of sad - just sitting alone on the couch, listening to everyone laugh & hearing noises from babies I haven't met yet. It sucks being so far away from my family. Which is not to say anything bad about the in-laws. They are great, I am so pleased to have lovely in-laws. But lovely as they are... they simply aren't the Laws. If you've met my family, that will make sense.

As a follow-up to the last post, myproposal was denied, for right now. I was given a pat on the head, a smidgen of a raise, and more of a bonus than I expected. So I'm content. Still applying to graduate school, but content.

Time to go get more tea... my hands are cold.

Place your bets

2007-11-16T08:57:00.000-05:00

I submitted a proposal for a new position at work. I suggested that it pay $10K-$15K more that I currently make and that I am the perfect person for the position. I don't have high hopes that it will happen.

I helped interview for another position yesterday. This position was posted to make $6K less than I make, but the favored applicant requested $4K more than I make - and I think she's going to get it... and part of her job duties will be to assist me.

On the flip side, I have received confirmation that I am the favored employee on the premises - so it's anybody's guess as to what will actually happen.

I could be thrilled, content, or extrememly disgruntled. Place your bets.

Shh...

2007-11-12T14:02:00.001-05:00

I'm staying very quiet in my little corner of the building. I've only done a smidgen of work over the past week. I think they have forgotten that I'm here. If I move around much, they might notice me and assign tasks and things. Much better to stay in the quiet and explore the Neil Gaiman message boards.

Hello Cthulhu

2007-11-08T10:36:00.000-05:00

Start here: http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

2007-11-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

Today we had a "We survived October" party at work. In September one of my co-workers suggested an ice cream party once we had plowed through the busiest month in our history. Everyone got busy , but I had a chance to come up for air before others. So I talked to the right people and we had a little celebratory lunch today.

I decided lunch, even amazing build your own burrito lunch, wasn't festive enough. I made Craig's grandmother's cheesecake, used DaRa's crock pot to make my Dad's apple cider, and made a quick run to the liquor store for spiced rum, prosecco, and moscato.

It was so nice to sit down and enjoy lunch together with co-workers that is not the result of people quitting or having their positions eliminated and that doesn't require we attend a meeting first. It was just lunch for the sake of enjoying the company of co-workers and the amazing food of Fresh Company.

Quote of the Day - from Wikiquote.org

2007-11-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

I don’t think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won’t even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And anyway, hell, they don’t even apply to what, in actual fact, modern warfare has become. ~ James Jones

GRE Scores & the Dalai Lama

2007-10-15T22:16:00.000-04:00

I don't have the scores on the essay portion of the test, but I do have the math and verbal scores. Neither was above 700, but I'm pleased with the scores nonetheless. I earned a 640 on the math, which is about 100 above the average score for people who take the GRE with the intention of attending graduate school to pursue a degree in Arts & Humanities. I earned a 680 on the verbal which places in the 96th percentile of all GRE test takers. :)

The scores are definitely good enough for a Master's program. They may be good enough for a PhD program, but there's one more test involved for those. That (big, scary, mean) test is the Literature Subject GRE. I take that (big, scary, mean) test on November 3rd. It's a paper based test, so I won't have results until early December.

Regardless, that's one hurdle cleared on my path to graduate school. The applications, writing sample, statement of intent, letters of recommendation, etc. all still have to be completed. It's kind of an intimidating process, but knowing I've at least started the process feels good.

On another note, the Dalai Lama visited my work today. He was addressing a conference of Tibetan university students that are studying in the US. He spoke almost entirely in Tibetan, so I couldn't understand him - but it wasn't really about me. I was able to take pictures of him using some of the students' cameras, but the State Department and Secret Service wouldn't let me bring my own camera. Although I don't have any photographs, I do have the visual memory of bowing to him and him bowing to me in return. I don't think I would have preferred the photo.

And I think it's pretty cool that he took time to bless the bomb-sniffing dogs that were roaming the premises all day. If I were a spiritual leader, I would bless all the dogs... except poodles.

Big, Important Test Day

2007-10-13T07:59:00.000-04:00

I'm taking the GRE today. I have high hopes for my half ass studying self. If I get over 700 on both the verbal and the quantitative - I will be a bouncing, happy, squealing Lyzard. If I get less than 650 on the both - I will be a sad, "I should have studied more," grumpy Lyzard. I'll let you know.

Ever since the GRE became a computer adaptive test (meaning if you answer question 1 right, question 2 will be harder and your score is not only based on how many questions you get right - but also how many of those are hard questions) one of the new features is that as soon as you are done, your score on everything but the writing is on the screen. This is good and this is bad. What about the decompression time that comees after tet - when you convince yourself that you did the best you could, blah blah blah? That's stripped away from you. You barely heave a sigh of relief that your done and BAM - SAUSAGE! ... or BAM - TEST SCORE, but BAM - SAUSAGE makes me think of Amber and giggle, so I prefer sausage damnit!

I'm taking flash cards on the train. It takes about an hour and ten minutes to get from the train station up here to Grand Central. I will be cramming. Unlike many people who find cramming to be a highly stressful activity - cramming is kind of soothing for me. I think maybe because it has worked so many times and I can honestly say, "Well, there's nothing else I can do now" as I walk into the test. Speaking of cramming, I'm going to go get started on that.

Send me thoughts of 700+ test scores, I'll report back soon.

Babies, Babies Everywhere

2007-10-10T14:13:00.000-04:00

Last night my family celebrated the arrival of Maxwell David into our family. His parents, my brother Morgan and his fiancee Jessica, are adorable and as far as I can tell from the pictures, so is Max.

My older brother, Dylan and his wife Sheree are expecting their second child near the end of the month. They won't tell us her name yet - they like secrets - but we do know she'll be the first girl.

I hope you weren't expecting a pregnancy announcement from me at the end of this post. Much to the disappointment of Craig's family - we aren't planning babies in the immediate future. There's graduate school I need to attend so we need to get Craig out of the banking industry. He just keeps getting in deeper and deeper (as evidenced by a recent promotion to a VP position, which I think officially makes him a dicksmack). But the most important reason to wait for kids, I need to disabuse Craig of the notion he's gotten in his head that it's okay to name your daughter Annabel Lee - because honestly, that's not okay.

GOOD LUCK BEAR

2007-09-28T13:33:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, my sister will rock the LSAT - I just know it!
I mean really - only missing one question on two practice sections?!?!
Nobody else rocks it like that.

And your weekend?

2007-09-15T22:18:00.000-04:00

Craig's sister and mother were supposed to come spend Friday night with us, check out our new place, watch movies and then go to the nephews' birthday party on Saturday.

It didn't quite work out like that.

Craig's sister was hit by a car while walking to the store. The police report will be available on Monday. Her arm was broken in three places, plus a loose bone fragment. Her ankle (on the other side of her body) was broken in two places. Both of the aforementioned limbs have been on and pins and rods have been placed to keep everything aligned. She also suffered a sacral fracture. She has what appears to be a teeny tiny bleed in the back of her head, and is getting CT scans daily to make sure it stays teeny tiny. Another part of her daily routine now is a chest x-ray, to see if the part of her lung that collapsed is able to be reinflated by breathing exercises. Tomorrow we should get the results from her MRI and know if she has broken any of her vertebrae. Her blood is too thin to coagulate and allow her surgical wounds to heal, but she can't move and the fear a blood clots is high - so they're replacing the blood she loses as a result of the blood thinners.

She's still not able to sit up, and has to be transported by hospital bed, but the nurse said she'll probably be released on Tuesday. We're pushing to have her released to a rehabilitation center where she can be given the right amount of attention and care. Craig's mother can't afford to take any time off of work. Not that his sister can afford it either... but she'll be in a wheelchair for at least six weeks, so whether she can afford it or not, she won't be working.

And your weekend?

I think...

2007-09-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

~Goethe

A treat?

2007-09-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

When someone else's actions make my job harder or more distasteful, I get irritated.

When the same someone knows I will get a tongue-lashing for their actions and they do it anyway, the irritation grows.

When the same someone apologizes in advance of the tongue-lashing they know I will be getting, the irritation stands still - does not lessen, does not increase.

When, in the same breath as apologizing, the same someone asks me to buy them a treat when I drive to the place where I will be getting the tongue-lashing, my jaw drops.

Nothing is more irritating to me that the audacity of entitlement.

Nothing.

Kirby Ray Robbins

2007-08-29T09:03:00.000-04:00

1970-2007

His obituary is here: http://www.legacy.com/saltlaketribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=93293891.

Kirby was already working at Convergys when I started there and was still working there when I left. He was... how strange to type was and not is... one of the most purely delightful people I have ever had the priviledge to know. He had a wonderfully, dry sense of humor and an amazing laugh. The kind of laugh that, if you can evoke it from him, felt like he was giving you a gift. Above all, Kirby was genuine. He was genuine in his childlike joy of life, genuine in his devotion to his family, and genuine in his love for his friends.

So many of the qualities I appreciated and admired in Kirby are the qualities that I adore in Craig. That combined with their extreme closeness in age has caused me cling to a Craig a bit more over the past few days. In response, Craig has said, "You forget, I'm immortal." But that's the problem, in my mind and in my heart he is... painful to remember that he is, in fact, mortal.

Making the most of the time you've got...

2007-08-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

August 26 is always a time of reflection for me. I can barely believe that Corey is nine years old. I was nine in 1988 and that was really the last year of my childhood in a lot of ways.

When I was ten, my mom was first admitted to a residential psychiatric unit. I used to try and remember the way to CPC Olympus View so I could run away and live with her. When I was ten, my grandmother told me that if she was my mother, she would rather live in a hospital too. I left a note telling her that "she treat[ed] me like dirt" and ran away.. but only got as far as the yard sale at the Price's house. At ten, I sang "Then Land Before Time" song to my baby sister to get her to fall asleep when she woke up crying the middle of the night. At ten, I realized that my parents had money trouble and made a list of all the gifts I had been given, how much they cost and calculated how much money I thought they would have saved if I had never been born. At ten, I had learned what suicide meant - and tried it for the first time. Ten was such an intense year, that it has mostly eclipsed nine in my mind.

I hope his childhood lasts many more years than mine did, and I trust it will.

It's been a decade since I was pregnant. I really expected to be a mother again before being an aunt three times over - but life has played out differently and infinitely more wonderful than I expected... but I wonder if I am really making the most of the time I have.

I need to finish my school applications. I need to feel a level of forward movement. I need to mail my chapter to the publisher... which would require finishing the chapter. I need to move ahead in my life. I know I'm young, but so was Kirby. Kirby went to the doctor last Monday. He was diagnosed with cancer last Wendesday and passed away on Saturday. Before anyone who loved him could even come to terms with the word cancer - he died.

Kirby's death and the anniversary of Corey's birth have left me feeling raw... and introspective.

5...4...3...2...1... and
Kerpluey
You're done
You're done for
You're done for good.
So
Have you done
Have you done all you could?

Exercising Self-Restraint

2007-08-20T15:02:00.000-04:00

The month of October will be a very busy work month for me. I support several different programs and events. I have 5 multiple day events occruing, right on top of each other within a time period of less than 2 weeks in October.

I have brought this to the attention of my boss and management several times. Finally today I stressed the need for a plan of how to handle this. In a normal situation, I will work 12-16 hours per day, per event. This cannot happen for 12 days straight. Especially since I do not receive overtime pay or comp time for hours worked M-F.

I suggested sending an email to the event directors, asking them to choose an eight hour time block per day for me to work. I was told to draft an email and be aware that during those days I will simply have to "exercise some self-restraint."

As if I work 16 hours a day, for 8 hours of pay because I cannot control myself.

Poor choice of words, at best.

Leaving Joisey

2007-08-07T13:45:00.001-04:00

As you may or may not know, I have been commuting 150 miles per day, Monday-Friday, since November. This makes me very sleepy, and more than a little bit grumpy. Soon, all this will change... we're moving!

We found a house to rent in NY state - only 11 miles from where I work! And that's not even the best part. In fact, I'm not certain which of the following is the best part...

a) the private dock and lake access
b) the fireplace
c) the dishwasher
d) the stream
e) the hot tub

I think the hot tub and the dishwasher are the frontrunners in this contest.

Anyway, we're moving on Saturday. Free pizza/beer/wine/lake swimming/hot tub usage/etc for anyone who wants to come help.

I'm hopeful that a shorter commute will result in a more congenial Lyzard. Craigory is hopeful that a shorter commute means will result in him not having to make dinner EVERY night. We'll see.

Escapism

2007-08-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

I want to populate fantastical worlds with elves and faeries. Mostly faeries, I don’t know about elves to be honest with you. You could say that is a good thing, that my imagination could go wild. But then you wouldn’t know me very well, at least not my writing self. My talking self could create all sorts of things, just for the fun of lying to you. But my writing self seems to care about accuracy and veracity, within fantasy.

My writing self must have been in control of me when, as a small child, I determined that I needed a proper imaginary friend, like other creative children. (I knew I was creative, my parents kept telling me so.) After much consternation, I finally decided upon Mr. and Mrs. Nobody, who were apparently rather ungrateful at having been created. Aafter I created them and offered them sugar cubes, they promptly did NOTHING. Apart from consume more than half of the box of sugar cubes so I had to put an empty box back in the pantry, which didn’t fool my mother in the slightest.

I released Mr. and Mrs. Nobody into the wild in a church parking lot surrounded by land about to be subdivided, like my grandmother would do with extra kittens. I’m certain they found a child they were more suited to be imaginary friends with, I just wasn’t boring enough for them.

nothing but red

2007-07-24T09:09:00.000-04:00

You may remember Dua Khalil Asward, the 17 year old Yazidi Kurdish girl stoned to death by family members and religious leaders. If you don't, you should. While the story of her brutal, public murder was only touched upon briefly by mainstream media, that's more coverage than is given to most "honor killing" victims.

If you are worried that you might not remember her next week, as the soundbytes of modern media crowd your brain, watch the video. (I'm not linking it, it's easily accessible on YouTube and many, many other blogs.) There are graphic images that will burn themselves into your brain, if you allow yourself to remember that this is not a movie. That is not fake blood, they are not actors. They are all human beings. The perpetrators, the victim, the bystanders. This is what human beings are capable of doing to each other.

But human beings are also capable of compassion, intervention, action. You are capable of change - within yourself, within your community, within the world. Your capability makes you culpable.

... it's no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.
--Joss Whedon (emaphasis added)

nothing but red

International Campaign to Stop Honor Killings

Petition against stoning and 'honor' killing in Kurdistan

Also from Joss Whedon:
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. (emphasis added)

Orange Fridays begin July 27

2007-07-19T14:12:00.001-04:00

That is one week from tomorrow.

If you are unfamiliar with Orange Fridays, please read here:
http://www.worldcantwait.net/

P.S. Note that Rocky Anderson is a recent addition to the Voices Speaking Out section. :D

Married Life

2007-07-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

It feels like I upgraded from a fantastic boyfriend to the most amazing husband in the world.

How cool is that?

Read, Think, Consider Signing

2007-07-18T14:39:00.000-04:00

You are smart people.
Read this: http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=263796#1184782138
Read this: http://www.luciadeb.nl/english.htm
Think about the judicial process - an whether or not you feel it was just.
Consider signing here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lucia/

Please note this statement on the petition:
By signing, you are not making any statement about guilt or innocence of Mrs. de Berk. You are simply adhering to the opinion that the conviction appears "unsafe", ie, it seems that guilt was not established beyond reasonable doubt. By signing, you are not making any statement about guilt or innocence of Mrs. de Berk. You are simply adhering to the opinion that the conviction appears "unsafe", ie, it seems that guilt was not established beyond reasonable doubt.

Beauty

2007-06-22T14:04:00.000-04:00

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.
- Miss Piggy

One Day Work Week

2007-06-01T08:56:00.000-04:00

I only worked Wednesday this week.
Monday was an official holiday, Tuesday I took off to recover from a wonderful, but whirlwind visit from my cousin.
Wednesday I went to work.
Thursday I went in for an emergencey extraction of two of my wisdom teeth and today I am swollen and medicated.

I like the idea of a one day work week, but I think I would really prefer it if I didn't look like a chipmunk and feel like my jaw was slightly mangled.

That said, I'm very grateful for the skill of my oral surgeon. Both teeth were removed in less than 20 minutes total, and one of them had curved roots. I know from previous experience, the more the oral surgeon has to struggle, the more painful the recovery will be for the patient.

That said, I would have felt more comfortable if he would go by something other than "Dr Nick."