In which my decrepitude becomes apparent

The fun, it is killing me. Our friend Gabi was in town this weekend and fun was pursued with a vengance, which meant that Friday night included trips to four separate bars and aborted attempts to enter two more before my committment to being a good time expired and I went home. Saturday was better; we parked ourselves at Delilah's and waited for fun to come to us. And Sunday, of course, = football and fried foods. A fun time, all around, but I'm clearly too old to go out on successive nights like that. So why not do it again next weekend, only with flying!

Toward that end, there was shopping. I found a dress for the Weekend of Weddings--a vintage heavy-satin wiggle dress with some interesting lacework detailing around the neckline. It looks late '50s and it fits me perfectly. Fishnets and some big hair should get me all set for the Vegas festivities, but I'm still undecided about what I'm wearing in Tucson.

Oh, and then there was class. UChaos started yesterday, and for the first time ever there I have a full house. And then some. We'll see how many I scared off yesterday with my rampage through English history ("Oh! I forgot James! He was kind of obsessed with witches! And had issues with women. But, considering his family history, that's not terribly surprising, no?"). But it was nice to see that I have five returning students from various classes in my past; considering the caliber of faculty we have, I'm fairly astonished that they'd choose to take a second class with me.

Also, the new tv season is killing me, what with all the shows all the time. Tivo helps, but I'm only one woman. Who should be reading Sidney's sonnets instead of watching Studio 60. And Gilmore Girls. And Top Model. At least Life on Mars is done for the moment (and it's awesome and you should find it on dvd), along with all my summer reality crap, so that clears the schedule somewhat. But I suspect there will be attrition in the future.

In which I make a (triumphant?) return

I have to go down to campus today, for various and sundry reasons, but one is the Beginning-of-the-Year Reception. Whee. I suppose I'll make an appearance, if for no other reason than to make sure that Flaky Advisor gets the materials she needs to write me a letter for conference funding. But I'm spooked, for the first time ever, by the idea of the reception. I know fewer and fewer people every year. I have no idea who the people are who are heading the grad social-ish committee, the same committee I myself served on just a couple of years ago. I honestly thought that I'd avoid the diss-years alienation problem, but, alas. I've become that ghostly sixth-year haunting the department, quivering slightly in the light, scurrying back to the safety of the library (metaphorically, that is; I hate our awful, brutal library and avoid it as much as I can).

Let's pretend, however, that my on-campus absence is due not to hermetical ways but due to my having a life outside the academy. In fact, part of the reason I can't stay long at the reception and lead a drunken contingent of first-years to the local pub for further revelry (the highlight of previous receptions) is that a friend is coming in from out of town tonight and I have to pick him up at the airport. Yay for visits! (Never mind that I still need to plan the first two classes of my UChaos class that starts on Monday. I'm sure I'll have time... sometime? On the bus to class on Monday, maybe?)

In which I have an embarrassment of riches

What happens when the same proposal is accepted by two different conferences? Can I tweak the paper to make them different? Should I mention that things might be slightly different from the proposal? Shouldn't the internets have this kind of information available somewhere?

Eta: Ok, having done some research, I think I'll have sufficient new stuff in the second iteration of the paper, since the chapter it's based on will be done by then. Now I just have to figure out how to tell the panel organizer that the title and/or content may be different than the proposal. But since the panel is Shx and contemporaries, he should be happy that I'll be including a contemporary, right?

In which my home is full of nerds

I'm wasting my Saturday night watching videos of my youth on YouTube, and I have discovered two things:

1) Carl is a gay nerd. He not only owns and knows all of Erasure's 12" remix singles, he has a favorite (the Big Train remix of "A Little Respect," apparently).
2) I spent my high-school years as a proto-emo nerd. Case in point.

In which I am delighted

Check it: I had two conference submissions accepted today, within hours of submission. Which means either they're desperate or I'm awesome. I'm going with the latter for the moment. As this is my first serious foray into the conference world, I'm quite pleased with the quick and happy results.

Special thanks to Flavia for her helpful advice on the proposal format--it worked!

In which there is one more thing

Late addition to the complaint list: I'm torturing myself reading over the MLA job list, where I'm not even halfway through and have found 29 postings for my field (also noted here and here). And that's just the ones that name-drop Big Willie. And many of them are in not-bad places! Why now? Why not save some of this bumper crop for next year when I'll be able to throw my hat in the ring? Let's just hope that this clears out a number of my job-seeking compatriots, leaving room next year for me. Good luck to those lucky enough to be out there this year.

Stupid dissertation that is still not writing itself. I kind of hate myself right now.

Eta: Final tally--52. Wow.

In which I register some complaints

• I have no idea why Blogger's being stupid with comments. Apparently, it doesn't like to acknowledge people who have Blogger accounts, so comments have to be posted under the "other" option. I ran into this on KT's blog as well, so I'm thinking it might be a problem larger than li'l ol' me.
• Why is it no longer possible to buy a six-pack of diet Coke at the grocery store? Why must I buy my six-pack from our local (very nice but) overpriced bodgea? If I'm at home, I'm enjoying my diet Coke in two-liter form, but since St. Happy became a Pepsiopoly, I'm taking a can of my choice to class with me. A six-pack will last me two weeks; I neither need nor have room for yet another twelve-pack of soda in my fridge (which already houses one of Coke and one of black cherry Fresca). Vive la six-pack!
• I am seriously going to start running down people on the sidewalk. Fully loaded, my bookbag weighs probably 15 pounds, and I am willing and able to sling it at those who will not cede me the 18 inches of space I need to pass. If you're walking two or three abreast toward me, something's gotta give, and it's not gonna be me, because I'm wearing pretty shoes and the grass is muddy.
  
• I'm shopping for a dress for the end-of-the-month multi-wedding extravaganza, and I hatehatehate being exactly at the tipping point between "regular" and "plus" sizes. A size 12 in a plus store is, like, two inches bigger than the same size at a regular store, leaving a two-inch gap where I live and where there are no dresses. There are, of course, two solutions to this: lose weight and go down to the land of 10, where things make sense again; or, gain weight and move toward the land of 16, where things also make sense. Or I can just wear one of the fourteentrillion black dresses I already own (proving that this size discrepancy exists in time rather than as an absolute, since I had to have bought these dresses sometime).
  
• My left knee is evil and has decided to protest stairs. Which is a problem, as I live on the third floor and must navigate stairs both at home and at the El station. Also, dear Aleve, you do not work on joint pain, so shut up about it already.
• Laundry is calling out, pleading with me to just do it. But, see above, re: stairs and evil knee.

P.S. to Al: I've left a couple of comments for you recently, but you have comment approval turned on! Approve me! Validate me! Tell me I'm loved!

In which I have a dilemma

One of my students from my spring course at UChaos has asked me for a law-school recommendation. I warned her off that she didn't want one from me because, um, I'm not a faculty member? Like, at all? But then I get a response that she's "talked to some people" and is comfortable using me as a recommender. I'm happy to write for her, because she was good in class and all, but I'm still concerned that I'll be her death knell. She's applying to big-city schools, so I know they'll be expecting high-caliber letters. Should I even agree to this, and figure out a way to address the weirdness of me in my letter? Or should I beg off, somehow?

In which there is a kind of memorial and a kind of management

We did Titus today, and I normally don't try to link course material to "real life" because I think (hope) that my students are bright enough to see why classic literature is important in their everyday lives. But today, as we were talking about the absurd jumps in magnitude and response in the play, it struck me that at the heart of this overwrought, gory, slightly campy play is an extended meditation on how an individual responds to unspeakable grief. In the face of literal horror--his mutilated and raped daughter--Titus runs out of methods of performing grief and starts to laugh. It's not madness, yet, but it's a recognition of how impossible responding rationally to the impossible really is.

The other attempts to respond are equally untenable, but recognizable. Titus is willing to exchange his own bodily pain for the hope of... well, hope itself. He cuts off his hand in exchange for the life of his sons and recieves, in return, their heads. It looks like a sacrifice, but really, isn't it just a desperate grab (pardon the pun) for anything that looks like not-grief? And then the immediate shift to the language of revenge, which obscures but doesn't mitigate grief, at least offers a version of the future in a moment that looks like the end of the world.

Which is to say... I don't know what. Titus is not a hopeful play, but it's true in as much as there are times when we have nothing left to say.

So here's my memorial: Five years ago, I slept in, because classes wouldn't start for two weeks yet. Carl got up early to do some writing. It was a beautiful day, clear and crisp and not yet fall but no longer summer, exactly. Around nine, Carl came in to tell me that I might want to wake up, since the end of the world might be happening. And that's all. No one we know was hurt or killed. Our lives didn't change. But I still couldn't watch the footage again this morning, and I still don't know what words work to make this better.

In which things improve

The second day was better. I have a handful of students who, when I start to get exasperated with the lack of response to my questions, will speak up. I do love the overachievers when they make my life easier (plus, that was me as an undergrad, because I just could not shut up). And I got to play with my wired classroom, leading a close reading on the computer display, highlighting linked images in a Word document. Super-geeky, but fun.

This hour-long format, though, is going to be a struggle (see above, re: not shutting up). I had to hold them at the end to take the roll I forgot at the beginning of class (I'm switching to a sign-in scheme this week, once enrollment settles). I ran out of time for my intro to Titus, so I sent them off with "Between 1590 and 1594! Tragedy! Bloody! Look for striking imagery! Make a note of what's funny!" So, yeah, that'll make for a productive Monday class.

But then I got a real weekend, after my summer of all one long weekend. Not that I did anything, but it did feel different. I did procrastinate terribly (and am still doing so, obviously). And my friend Nicole sent me some cute slipper-socks, just in time for the autumn weather that's descended on our fair city.

And, um. That's all. Back to Titus for me.

In which I dye and then I die

Dying first: First class this morning. Woke up bright and early, did some warrior poses (for "confidence" and "energy"), ate some cereal, drank some coffee, put on my cute new outfit, and headed out to the train with half an hour or so to go the eight stops to campus (estimated trip time: 15 minutes).

You know what happened. So I got to class late, flustered, not having drunk my diet coke yet. Talked too fast, talked too much, didn't even get to play with the fancy-schmancy a/v hookup in the classroom. Did the "Why Shx is important" song and dance (Hint: It's not just because it's a requirement). Ran off at least one student (she quietly set her syllabus back on the stack and slipped out). Felt very overheated and shiny. Skipped office hours to come home to sulk.

Eh. This just means that Friday has to be better, right?

Dyeing: Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror at L&T. While I was expecting to hate what my hair was doing (stupid growing-out phase), I was horrified to discover that I had a blonde streak happening in my bangs. The placement of which I clearly did not authorize. Suddenly, I was 13 again, freaking out over how blonde my hair gets in the sun. Because it's a weird, bad-highlight-job kind of blonde, not a lovely sun-kissed kind. Just, no. So I had to come home and dye. I'm back to dark brown now (espresso, allegedly) and feel much more like myself. Plus, I look meaner. Which helps when one is flustered and overheated and shiny in front of 25 students first thing in the morning.

In which we toast

Please welcome the newest member of our household, the Toastation:


So pretty, no? And heats to searing in seconds. I forsee a lot of french-bread pizza in my future.

And, yes, this is prime procrastination fodder during this, my second-to-last day of summer vacation. What I should be doing is double-checking my syllabus, organizing notes, charging up the Shuffle, whatnot. What I'm actually doing is lazing in my pajamas, trying to finish up my first RPM sock (why am I so bad at elastic bind-offs?), and toasting things.

Somehow, we tried to pack a full summer's worth of going out into the last four days, and I am far too old for this kind of schedule. One lively bar night and two barbecues later, I'm tired. But I needed the practice at being social, I guess.

What I'm mostly dreading is all the beginning-of-the-year small-talk schmoozing. Mostly because I the contents of my "What I did on my summer vacation" essay is: video games, baseball, napping. I'm mad at myself for not finishing the chapter, but I know that self-recrimination isn't especially productive. At least I have three weeks to practice on the St. Happy folk before I have to face my department.

I which I am a victim of scheduling

Well, hell. I just discovered that my class at UofChaos has been switched from TTh to MW. Thanks so much for letting me know, guys, rather than letting me find out by looking at the timeschedule. Oh, wait, you totally didn't let me know. Bah.

So this means that I'll be teaching mornings at St. Happy, holding my office hours until noon, trekking down to Chaos, and teaching until 4:30. Not the worst schedule, since it frees up two days a week, but still, those are going to be long days.

What really sucks about this is that it's going to make it very difficult to sit in on the class offered by the Grand Ol' Gal of our department, which I was really hoping to do. She's been one of my greatest advocates in the past, and I could really use that kind of cheerleading now. I'll have to think hard about whether I can swing this.