In which we are done

We are, aren't we? With this whole damn year? It hasn't been bad, exactly, just eternal and exhausting. I feel like I should do a year-end wrap-up to properly situate my personal history, but I can't even remember last January. There's a vague sense of writing feverishly to make departmental fellowship deadlines, and then... nothing for a long, long time. And then writing feverishly to make job-related deadlines, and then... suck, lots of suck. The End.

So, anyway. More recent history has included a lovely trip to the sunny, balmy climes of the American Southwest. Oh, Tucson--I love you, I miss you, and you make me ineffably sad. I ate a lot. I got a trucker tan on my right arm (so, really, a passenger tan).

And then we came home for MLA. Went to the blogger meet-up (Hi! Hi! You all were awesome!), drank fancy hotel-bar drinks, chatted a bit, and scurried home. C. had an interview on Friday, and I went ahead and registered so I'm covered for next year. I popped into a session Prof. Persnickety was presenting in, and got a smile and wink from our department's Gloriana (been there forever, brilliant and ballsy, so kind and gracious to those she likes, so terrifying from the other side). I slipped out before the hobnobbing after, preferring to disapparate instead. Strolled the book exhibit, spent not so much but got so much (see below). I had intended to go to some panels on Saturday and Sunday, but the inertia of my couch proved too much for me.

The theme of the last week or so has been How Many Books Can I Buy, and Will They Make Me Feel Better? Answers: 36 and Kinda.

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In which I find an excuse to go to the archive

Here's my secret shame: I don't do archival stuff. It's not that I don't want to, it's more that the whole research portion of my graduate training has been... sad, to say the least. Non-existent is another apt term. My home library has, allegedly, a fantastic collection of stuff. My city has yet another fantastic private library with archives right up my alley. And yet, I've never delved into them.

But! I met with Don Music yesterday to discuss cabbages and kings and how on earth I can finally put at least one chapter to bed. After the last committee meeting, I came away with a new framing idea for the whole diss, and Don and I talked yesterday about how to pursue that idea and what kinds of critical and contemporary sources I need to bring into my argument. Which then led to him getting all excited about a tiny little genre of 16th-century how-to manuals in a tangential field. Of course, none of these manuals are of the kind of literary or historical importance to have been put out in modern editions. So it's off to the archive with me, because there's no way in hell that I can skim that ridiculous blackface type on a computer screen (not that EEBO isn't awesome).

UChaos's library doesn't have a copy of the one manual I most want to look at, but the private library does. As well as what looks like a few other related books. So, once we get back from our holiday trip to the balmy southwest, I'll be hieing myself downtown to get my official reader's card. Whee!

I do hope, though, that this new approach doesn't derail the work I've done so far. It looks like this material will fit neatly into what I already have written and give the chapters the critical grounding the committee thinks I need. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by my talk with Don, but also tentatively excited that I'm finally getting specific advice toward producing the work they want to see.

Also, I went a bit hippie-flaky earlier today and cleared out all the crap that was cluttered up in front of our household shrine (what, you don't have a household shrine? Made up of saint candles, Elvis memorabilia, milagros, conference nametags, and casino chips?) because I felt like the energy was totally trapped, man. Also, my bamboo plant was nearly dead.

Oh, and I celebrated turning in my grades by buying an awesome bag. It's big enough to fit file folders!

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In which I give myself enough rope

Hell with it, then. I just sent off the abstract, proposing a paper on our favorite mopey Dane. What are they going to do, kick me out of the Smart Kids' Club?

It is now my intention to sit down and play video games for several hours.

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In which the end is in sight

St. Happy's in the books. UChaos has just turned in final essays, and grading is set to commence. This term was rough, and I'm so glad that the end is finally here. I'm a bit disappointed in my own performance this term; I feel like I just let go about halfway through. St. Happy took the brunt of my flailing, but the overall grade distribution came out acceptable, so I didn't drive us off the rails or anything. I did, however, not receive five (5!) final essays from that class, which is just inexplicable. I'm more astonished as a student than as an instructor; when I gave up on a class as an undergrad, I gave up. Just stopped acknowledging its existence. I don't understand showing up and doing the work through the term and then just bailing on the thing at the end that's worth nearly half of the final grade. Who does that?

UChaos came along a bit better, mostly because it was an all-new prep for me, which forced me to pay better attention and adjust as I went along. I think I managed the connections I was trying to make across the materials, but the final essays will be the proof of that one way or the other. I had forgotten, though, what different creatures first-years are. They're fascinating in their weird array of knowledge and ignorance. They know such obscure and fantastic things, and then turn around and call every bit of published text between two covers a "novel." They've exposed a number of my own blind spots (like, how is everyone in the world not enamored of the humanistic approach to text?), and I'm sure they'll be exposing even more next term. I'm really happy that I have another term with this bunch to expand on the work we've done so far and to patch up some of the mistakes I made with them this term.

Ok, and as for my own work. Not good. Or, rather, not happening. The word-count has not budged, because I have not yet opened a document and named it "Most-Famous Play and Second-Most-Famous Play Chapter." I'm reading toward it, but I haven't yet put words to it. There was a meeting with 2/3 of my committee before Thanksgiving in which we figured out what was producing the disastrous miscommunication that led to the Bad Thing that happened in October. It was useful, but I'm still shaping my rage into the constructive engine I need it to be.

I also need to submit an abstract for a conference-thing. Today. I think I'll be presenting on Most-Famous Play, but I'm feeling a bit wary of submitting such a thing to a conference of Big Willie bigwigs. Is it absolute folly to do so? Or are we all so over that play that now we can actually start doing things with it again?

(It also occurs to me that this wariness is a product of the Bad Thing. One of the greatest compliments I've ever received came indirectly from Persnickety Prof., who told Mr. Eph that I was "fearless." Which, although it may have meant "too obtuse to know better," I held as a badge of honor. And now... now I fear I may be fearful. God damn it.)

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In which irony swings by a for a visit

Those three little applications I sent off, back when I was hopeful and ambitious about this year's market, before the world ended? Remember those?

One has requested more materials.

On the one hand, I feel vindicated. On the other, I suspect it's the UChaos name that did the trick.

But, still. Now do I respectfully retract my application, ignore the request, or forward the message on to my committee with a smug and disingenuous request for advice?

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In which we engage in a rite of passage

For the first time ever, in the history of time, I cried in front of a professor. Two, in fact, during a three-hour meeting with two-thirds of my committee. Goddamn it.

In my defense, it was more minor leakage rather than a full-on jag, and it was prompted by Persnickety jabbing at a very sore spot. He suggested that what my chapters are lacking is a certain level of "professionalism." Ahem. This "professionalism," to judge by my training in this program, appears out of nowhere, or perhaps descends upon one, like grace or manna or bird droppings. It is not, so far as I can tell, an aspect that is taught as part of the curriculum for doctoral students. It is also not something that could have been mentioned at point earlier in the three years I've spent on the dissertation so far.

So, yeah. It was crying in lieu of stabbing someone with a pen.

Other than that, it was a useful meeting. I have a strategy now for establishing my argument in a way that satisfies Persnickety and is interesting enough to keep the newest member of my committee (we'll call him Don Music) engaged. I still need to run it by Cheerleader, but I'm sure she'll be on board.

There was also some weirdness around the question of my engagement with the critical and contemporary background for my primary texts that, the more I think about it, sounds like Persnickety may have been suggesting that I haven't done my research. Which, combined with my feeling that this whole denial-of-letters has the effect of accusing me of being a fraud, just ups my rage yet again. Because in the past half-dozen years I have felt anxious, doubtful, unsure, confused, and absolutely at sea at times, but I have never felt like a fraud. I know what I know, and these suggestions that I don't seem to be about the most counter-productive advising techniques I can think of.

Hm. It appears that I'm still angry. I wonder if that will go away at some point.

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In which we revert

Since I can't manage to make Google searches ignore me, I'm switching naming conventions back to this older style. Annoying, because I liked using the song titles, but what ya gonna do. So, I've added odd characters in the middle of some of the older post titles to head off those looking for lyrics. But if anyone has further suggestions for cloaking myself in secrecy (wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce), they'd be appreciated.

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"Do You Realize?" The Flaming Lips

Dude, the universe is whispering at me. A local newscaster just quoted a line from Bacon that a good chunk of my first chapter hinges on. And last night's Boston Legal featured a closing argument that weirdly paralleled the last chapter I was working on. Something's in the air.

But, seriously, what local tv reporter quotes Bacon, for Francis's sake?

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"Wish I Were the Moon," Neko Case

Somehow that little counter/bar thingy over yonder hasn't budged. Hm. Perhaps because I have yet to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) in pursuit of the Major Plays chapter. I know I'm a slow started, but this is a little silly.

I did, however, finally talk to Cheerleader Advisor last night, and she was just as gung-ho on my project as ever. She also gave me some good strategies for my meeting with Persnickety Advisor, where I hope to convince him once and for all about the feasibility and importance of the topic. It's just so frustrating to be two years into the writing portion and I still have to convince him anew with every meeting. The current attempt to fix this involves outlining an introduction that covers all the critical background I'm not directly addressing in order to free up space in the chapters for what I do care about. Persnickety is an excellent editor and thinker (which is why he's on my committee), but I'm just so tired of defending my work every single time I meet with him.

I was also able to let Cheerleader know how this decision on their part affects my personal life, reminding her that I'm part of a two-career partnership. She suggested I set a writing schedule that (best-case scenario) makes me hire-able come spring if things go well with C.'s search. Which, again, was my original schedule, so I'm even more committed to sticking to it now.

So that's that. In teaching, I'm in the middle of what should be an awesome week: we're doing two of my favorite texts (forgive the 133t-speak, but I can't figure out how to make Google ignore me), The W@ste L@nd and The W1nter's T@le. And I feel like today's classes were good--the first-years really got the fun and utility of close-reading, and the Shx class liked the play more than I had expected after the pain and suffering last week's Tr0ilus and Cress1d@ caused. But I'm so, so worn out and unmotivated. It's an effort to turn it on at the beginning of class, and I'm more wiped-out than usual afterward. I'm entirely ready for the Quarter of Crap to be over and done with.

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Poetry Friday

No progress on the chapter just yet (Thursdays absolutely destroy me), but how's about a little Ovid? This is a little bit from the section on Arachne (Book VI), and for some reason, this translation from the Oxford cheapy edition absolutely slays me:

Only Arachne had no fear. Yet she
Blushed all the same; a sudden color tinged
Her cheeks against her will, then disappeared;
So when Aurora rises in the dawn,
The eastern sky is red and, as the sun
Climbs, in a little while is pale again.

She stood by her resolve, setting her heart,
Her stupid heart, on victory, and rushed
To meet her fate.

(Translation by A.D. Melville.)

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"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," Bob Dylan

All right, fine, then. I'm in with InDWriMo, because somehow the next chapter has to be written, come hell, high water, or crazed advisors. I'm pledging 15,000 words as a lowball goal, because this is the chapter on Most-Written-About Text in my field, and Second-Most-Written-About Text. And, of course, the one that my chair thinks has nothing to do with the rest of the argument of the dissertation. Woo.

As for the previous thing. Still processing, still mad, still not ready to talk to the committee.

(Thanks, Flavia, for the words of support. Did help.)

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"Happiness Is a *Warm Gun," The Beatles

The very bad things that happened previously with my committee have transformed into catastrophic things. They withdrew their support for my job search this fall. Which is, clearly, a non-negotiable decision.

So, that happened.

I don't know if anyone's paying attention here other than my mom (hi, Mom! I'll call you tomorrow), but for my imaginary friends, I'm still processing, and I'm not sure if I'll be doing that here.

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"That Teenage & Feeling," Neko Case

I'm in grading hell this weekend: thirtysome midterm exams, an equal number of essays, two days' worth of reading responses for my first-year class, and a bunch of weekly quizzes. All but the essays should go quickly, but gah all the same. My own stupid fault for having a week that kept me on public transit for approximately twice the number of hours I spent in class.

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"You Just Haven't ^ Earnt It Yet, Baby," Kirsty McColl

Apropos of nothing other than Flavia's new, pretty things, I recalled the one good thing that's come of this quarter's hellish teaching schedule: Because I have a hefty commute between UChaos and St. Happy, I wear my Chucks to trek, and take my lovely but brutal shoes to wear for class. Yes, it's reminiscent of office-ladies wearing their Reeboks on the subway while carrying their sensible pumps in their shoulder-bag, but it's also an excuse to break out the high, high-heeled pointy, pointy-toed lovelies for stalking around in front of the chalkboard.

In other news, this week still sucks. But Big Fancy Name in my field seemed persuaded as to the interestingness of my project.

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"Weird on Me," Lloyd Cole

I managed to fix up the writing sample last night, and while I'm now plotting to substantially rework the opening so I have a properly snappy intro, it's currently good enough for the school with the Monday deadline. Yeah, fine, whatever.

As I was writing up yet another abstract, this one for the sample, I realized why I hate the form so, so, so much. Waaaay back in my formative years--fifth grade, maybe?--I had a teacher who gave us an assignment to write one-sentence book reviews. Oh, god, how I hated that assignment. As I recall arguing to Mrs. Tanner, whom I otherwise loved, if the book can be summed up in one stinkin' sentence, why did the author bother to write the whole thing?

I feel the same way about abstracts. If I can distill the whole of the sample/chapter/dissertation into three or four sentences, why the hell am I writing 20/50/300 pages? Yeah, yeah, I get the usefulness of the abstract, in that it articulates the main points of the argument without getting into the whole process, and a good abstract can prepare your reader to approach the material with the most favorable attitude toward it. But. Gah.

I'm just so very tired of writing about my writing. On the other hand, though, the more I look over the summary of the next chapter on the docket, the more excited I am to write it. As C. said when he read over that chapter summary, "I really want to read this one!" Encouraging, at least.

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"White Girl," X

So, hi. There was a very bad weekend, followed by a rather bad week. There were tears, and general freaking-out, mediated by an emergency meeting with Sympathetic Job Committee Chair, where she talked me down and helped me sort out what needed to be done with the materials. And then I spent the whole weekend rewriting the letter, abstract, and c.v., as well as line-editing the two drafted chapters and slapping the Monster Chapter into draft status. Nearly kilt me, I tell ya. But! I was able to send an entirely new and complete batch of materials off to my committee on Sunday night.

Which meant I was able to show my face at My Field Event on Monday evening. I suspect that my chipper presence did as much to persuade as the materials themselves did. At least, I'm telling myself that, as I've heard not a peep since then from any of my referrers. Hm.

And then! Then, I crashed. Thank goodness this was midterm week for one class, because there was no way I could have done any more prep than I managed on the (very early) bus to campus.

There are now two application packets resting quietly in my desk at St. Happy, waiting to be sent out on Monday, along with one electronic application to be submitted the same day. But I still need to line-edit my writing sample and write up something that looks at least a little like a teaching philosophy for deadlines later this week.

Aaaaaannnnnndddd...I don't want to. I'm feeling sulky and recalcitrant. This is the nasty flip side to my short bursts of intense productivity. They wipe me out for, like, a week, and I have a miserable time re-motivating myself. Which is bad, because there's a heck of a lot to be done this weekend, in addition to the job stuff. I have midterms to grade, along with two piles of essays, plus reading for class, reading for another My Field Event on Monday, and reading for a Superstar Guest meeting on Wednesday. Who sucks at time management? I do!

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"This Is What I Do," Rhett Miller

I am finding myself in a very bad place. I sent off my job materials to the committee (late, I know) and immediately received a message from Cheerleader Advisor, in which she noted that my letter was riddled with typos and grammatical problems. And that my c.v. used the wrong format for degree titles. And that all versions of my abstract suck.

Now, my abstract probably does need work, which is why I'm sending it to you, damn it. And the vita thing, whatever, it's what my reference book said, but easy to change. But for the life of me, I cannot find the typos in the letter. And it's not like I'm bad at proofreading; I used to do it for a living. And when you tell me you need a "clean copy" of the long abstract, the copy editor in my rises up to cut a bitch for suggesting that I'm responsible for dirty copy.

So, ok, I fixed some things up and tried to clarify what she specified she was having problems with. And then I looked up some recent Chaos dissertations, purportedly to check citation style (MLA or Chicago?) but really to see what's been coming out. And, the abstracts for these completed dissertations? On par with my abstract for a still-partly-imaginary project. Or, excuse my snobbishness, worse. Obfuscatory language? Yep. Jargon for its own sake? Yep. A distinct sense of so what? Yep.

Possible explanations:

• [all redacted now, because I'm indulging a spot of paranoia]
  

Luckily, I have versions of all this stuff off to the rest of the committee, the job-search chairs, and our department secretary (a former academic editor). Unluckily, I have not heard back from any of them yet. I do hope some of their feedback balances this out.

N.B., This post may or may not disappear, in whole or in part, at some point in the future. Not that anyone's reading, but whatever. Safe>sorry, and all that.


Eta: You know what? I'm line-editing my first chapter, and it's freaking awesome. It's been at least a month since I've messed with it, and I forgot half the stuff I said, so it's like reading a brand-new piece. Repent and die, bastards. I'm good at some of this.

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"Think About It, Think, Think About It," Flight of the Conchords

I have been warned in the past that there will come a point where I am so heartily sick of my dissertation topic that I will want to finish just to get it out of my head. I thought this was going to happen because I would spend so much time thinking and writing about it.

I was half right.

I have written three different versions of a dissertation abstract, because apparently one needs different wording for the letter, the CV, and the official abstract. I now hate my project, at least in the abstract. I have four key terms, and I don't know how many more configurations I can wrestle them into before I descend into some wacked version of Shakespearean Mad Libs.

Also, my letter is exactly two pages, but I forgot to account for the letterhead crap, so now I have to do some more trimming there. My CV is pretty, though, except for the part where I don't have any publications.

Aaaaaaaand... the chapter isn't done. I'm going to send the job materials off to my committee tonight, but they're just going to have to wait on the chapter draft. Gah.

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"Four Leaf Clover," Old 97's

Accomplished:

• One job letter
• Two paragraphs of a teaching philosophy (including a clever metaphor)
• Appointment with Fancy Scholar in my sub-field, who is visiting Chaos this month
• A reminder that Terrifying Chapter (which is next on the draft docket) will be awesome when I finally write it.

[Seriously, reading over my proposal chapter summary for that one, I was like, "Damn, I want to read that chapter!"]

Still to be done:

• Reading student discussion responses for tomorrow's class
• Reading essay for same class
• Prepping same class
• Prepping other class
• Answering e-mail from Third Reader, who wants to make an appointment to talk about my drafts at exactly the times I can't possibly meet
• Finishing Nightmare Chapter

What I want to do:

• Watch baseball
• Watch Heroes
• Eat dinner
• Read about Britney's baby drama on the internets

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"Cruel to Be Kind," Nick Lowe

Ok, so that was annoying. A week in a hotel, all items in the apartment shifted to the south wall and draped in black tarps, construction, cleaning, bah. The cats seem to have recovered from their week at the pet hotel (we told them it was a corporate retreat), and are only marginally clingy and complainy. All my clothes are still packed in plastic and I'm not sure where my socks or underpants are. But I'm home, I have wireless access, and now I have until Wednesday to write my job letter, my teaching philosophy, my extended diss abstract, and oh yeah, my freaking Nightmare Chapter.

Also, tomorrow is the first of an expected four Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Days this quarter, in which I get up at 6 for class at 9, hold office hours, run around campus collecting materials for an event, catch the train to St. Happy for class at 1:30, travel back to UChaos for an event, and then drag myself all the way back north during rush hour. I'm predicting this will be at least a 13-hour day, all told, and I'm not sure where little things like lunch fit into it.

Oh, and I ran into Persnickety Prof. last week, who's heading my diss committee, and he had apparently forgotten that meeting we had in the spring where I told him I was on the market this year. He's already written all his letters and was surprised that he had one more batch to do. When did I become forgettable?

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"Every Day I % Write The Book," Elvis Costello

So here we are, officially homeless for the week, ensconced in a hotel in the first neighborhood we lived here in Big City, while the construction on our apartment commences. It's nice to be back around these parts. It is not so nice to cart six suitcases filled with class clothes, regular clothes, shoes, dopp kits, computer and accessories, and all the damn books and files I'll need to work on my chapter, chapter revisions, job letter, and teaching philosophy this week. Seriously, the book suitcase is very upsetting to me, as it's a concrete representation of what I have to distill onto the page. Luckily, the book suitcase is also topped off with back copies of Entertainment Weekly.

Also, we have two bathrooms in the room, due to the architectural oddities of old hotels.

Cats went to the pet hotel, and I'm sure they're fine, but I was a crazy cat mom while dropping them off, giving extensive and detailed feeding instructions. I did, however, stop short of explaining how you have to sing songs to Maggie in which all the words are "Maggie," "beauty," "beautiful," and "pretty."

Now I have to watch some football, mark some writing assignments, and finish writing my syllabus for my UChaos class. I'm confident that I can complete the first of those tasks.

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"Your Biggest Fan," Voxtrot

Oh, dear. We're going to have to spend the next week in a hotel, with the cats at a cat hotel, while major construction is done on the apartment. The landlords are installing central air and heat, which involves cutting holes in pretty much every single wall in the place. Also, I'm losing my walk-in closet, because that's where the machinery goes.

Had this happened a month ago, we could have just grabbed some clothes and decamped, but now that classes have started, relocating means also relocating all class-related paraphernalia. Plus, this week is C.'s birthday, which he now gets to celebrate by placing all of our belongings in dust-proof containers. Fun!

Today, I went to get a cat carrier (one of ours has gone missing), only to discover that Maggie just barely fits into the soft-sided thing I got. Also, pet store overcharged me for it, by, like, $20. Tomorrow, the kitten crew goes to the vet for booster shots. And I alone will be carting the 40 pounds of cats around, as C. has an ungodly-early class.

Wah.

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"Sister Sonny," Holly Golightly

Shockingly, perusing The Goddamned List and trying to work on The Godddamned Chapter simultaneously is decidedly unproductive on both fronts.

Edit: I split the difference by spending a while searching the list and setting up my job spreadsheet, so I could feel productive and organized. Then I turned to the chapter, and have managed a measly 3 pages (and one of those is mostly a 25-line block quote). Why is this chapter being so recalcitrant? I have 23 pages of straight-up close readings; you'd think it would be easy enough to build a frame around those, right?

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"Eye of Fatima (Pt. 1)," Camper Van Beethoven

I've maintained for years that this is one of the best songs ever written, but today I discovered I'd been hearing one line wrong since forever. It's "No one ever conquered Wyoming, from the left or from the right." Which makes more sense than what I'd been hearing all this time ("called from Wyoming"), if only incrementally.

Today was a meeting at Chaos about Ambitious Intro Class that starts in two weeks. Somehow, hearing that everyone else is feeling anxious and confused about it made me feel less anxious and confused. I still need to look over some articles to fill out the syllabus, but I feel ok about getting to that next week.

Big Willie is continuing to make me scattered and time-management-impaired. I really need to scale back the information I'm throwing at them, but it already seems that every other sentence out of my mouth is "But we'll get to that next [class/week/text/etc.]." Tomorrow's their first quiz, next week the first writing assignment, so I'll start to see what they're taking in and what I need to focus on.

In dissertation news, I seem to be reading myself into paralysis again. Which means I need to get back to writing. I have Friday blocked out to just sit and produce words, after which I can go out and drink with a friend from out of town.

And just to round out this portmanteau post, today I enjoyed two delightful consumer goods: First, a fantastic clippy pressboard binder thing I liberated from the supply closet at Chaos. Second, these

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"Guided by Wire," Neko Case

Why I Am Annoying (#614 in a series):

Every time I eat plums, I have to recite "This Is Just to Say" to Mr. Eph.

The solution? Pluots.

So, class happened. It was a hot day, with eight thousand percent humidity, and while waiting for the train I had sweat actually dripping down my face. I took to blotting my décolletage like a hot-flashing grandma. So, so pretty, I was.

The classroom was also too hot, which made me extra-manic, what with the pacing and the gesticulating (my gesticulations bring all the boys to the yard, damn right, they're better than yours). While the location of the classroom is fantastic (right across the hall from the adjuncts' office), it doesn't have a podium, and the desk is actually lower than the student desk/chair combos. There is, however, a comfy upholstered desk chair, all the better for lounging in during the cabaret performances that I'll be assigning, because there's also a piano.

Not the best opening day, overall. I screwed up my dates, meandered a bit, overshot the time and didn't get through my first exercise. Eh, whatever. Next time we dive in to Favorite Play and things will go more smoothly, I'm sure. If only because the weather's finally turned and I just got an awesome dress I eBayed for half its retail. Go, me.

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"Tangled Up in Blue," Bob Dylan

Oh, happy day! I got Official Mail from a Crazy Person! It's a preview of a "groundbreaking" study of Big Willie. A 900-page study, in fact, that "proves" all kinds of juicy historical and biographical "facts." Delightful.

Of course, it's by one those ones, who are bound and determined that some poor kid from the country couldn't ever write well. They're just adorable, from a distance.

This is even more fun than unsolicited review copies. And far crazier!

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"Save a Little Room for Me," John Wesley Harding

Do I win the seat-of-my-pants award for procrastinated preparation? I've just finished revising my Big Willie syllabus; the course meets for the first time tomorrow afternoon. Nah, not that bad, then. I've changed the instructions for the final paper and swapped the scheduled positions of the Popular Fairy Comedy and the Popular Cross-Dressing Comedy, but otherwise I'm doing pretty much what I did the last couple times I've been through this syllabus. I was thinking (after my useful meeting with Cool Prof in my field at St. Happy) about adding a performance aspect, but I'm still not entirely sold on it. More thinking is clearly in order.

I also had a meeting today about my minor service position at UChaos, which has been so beautifully set up by the career-office person that all I really have to do is send e-mail and show up for events. Excellent.

And, um. Then I did some shopping on the way home. Just school supplies. And a lip gloss. And a tote bag.

Now on to the last, most important part of my class prep: What will I wear for the first day? The temperatures are still working against me, and I have ridiculous blisters that are limiting my cute-shoe options (is it sad that the student evaluations that most amuse me mention my cute shoes?). I'm thinking a full-skirted black & white dress, light cardigan, and my bad-ass kitten heels with the buckle on the pointy toe.

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"When You Land % Here It's Time," The Shins

So, there was a birthday. And there was a good dinner, and a deeply fantastic lemon tart. And a night out at the birthday party for my favorite bar. All fairly low-key, but nice.

Today has been spent cleaning the apartment in preparation for the new school term. Granted, the dining room table is still covered in piles of articles and books for Massive Chapter (which is stalled at 16 pages of unconnected close readings. I've been reading all week, trying to formulate a frame for the argument. Gah.) and bags from my mostly-failed back-to-school shopping trips this week. I've managed to buy lots of makeup, but no clothes except for a party dress. Because I clearly needed another party dress. For all my parties.

Ahem, so, makeup. I bought some. Lipstick is apparently back this fall, and I'm in favor of this development. I'm trying out a few different reds and wines. And I bought new eyeliner, which is more exciting than it sounds. There was also a haircut and color, and they are both excellent and delightful.

Tomorrow, Mr. Eph and I head out to locations southerly for my cousin's Backwoods Hippie Jamboree Wedding. I should probably be packing, and checking weather forecasts, but instead I'm watching What Not to Wear and catching up on blogs. And I'm apparently in denial about classes next week, as I have yet to even look at my syllabus for the Big Willie class. Eh.

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"When We're Dancing," Magnetic Fields

I am mercifully without an earworm today, so this is a random track from the player.

How is it that, with a month to go before classes start, I've gotten my second library recall notice of the week? That makes four total for the summer, which is more than I've ever been victim to before. Has the Unspoken Law of Summer Books been changed or something? And this last one is a book I'm currently working with, so I'll be waiting until the very last moment to turn it in and then recall it immediately.

Haircut tomorrow, then a birthday dinner out. No writing, per se, the last couple of days, but lots of reading and note-taking. I think I can see how the frame for the argument is coming together.

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"99 Luftballoons," Nena

Saw Branagh's new As You Like It last night and it was... not good. Really weirdly tricked-up for no good reason, with abrupt and pointless shifts in tone, and most of the great and strange lines were cut out. "Sweep on, ye fat and greasy citizens"? Gone. Touchstone's "Much virtue in If"? Gone. Rosalind's examples of "men have lived and died, but not for love"? Gone. Phebe's railing at Silvius that if she's killed him with love, why isn't he dead yet? Gone. And why is Kevin Kline only doing Sad Clown now? He's a perfectly fine Normal Clown. His Jacques here seemed to be an extension of his Bottom in Midsummer a few years back. Alfred Molina's Touchstone was great, but played as far smarter than he really should be, if you ask me. The epilogue was cute, though.

I just want Branagh to get back to the tragedies. Or the romances, which would fit his oscillation between serious and silly much better. I'd kind of love to see what he'd do with Measure or Winter's Tale.

Very little writing accomplished yesterday, but I did some reading and found a chapter in which the author does a whole lot of the work I'd otherwise have to do to make my point, but arrives at entirely the wrong conclusion. I'd forgotten the best part about other critics: you can make them do all the work and then sweep in to make the better point at the end. So, today, as a break from the ongoing close-reading I've been writing up (why did I think that I needed 20 pages of close-reading? Do I still think this?), I'll be arguing with Big Name Guy in this subfield.

"Touched by the Hand of God," New Order

Clearly, C. has been influencing the music in my head.

Ok, the previous plan? Not terribly successful. I just sat at the dining-room table and looked at all the same online stuff that I look at while on the couch. I managed about two paragraphs over about two hours. The work-every-day thing, I just can't get myself to commit to. So, back to the short bursts of manic productivity that have been my compositional mode for my entire academic career. I'm too old a dog for that particular new trick.

Mostly, I'm trying to convince myself that I can get a full draft of this chapter together before we go out of town next week. Of course, also in the next week I need to: do some back-to-school shopping (clothes! shoes! random crap!), get my hair cut/colored, clean the apartment before classes begin, do a ridiculous amount of laundry, have a birthday. Still, possible!

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"The Frug," Rilo Kiley

My treat today, if I manage to get enough work done, is to buy the album that contains the above song.

I'm trying to trick myself into working by altering my surroundings. Instead of playing around online while sitting on the couch, I've relegated the laptop to the dining-room table. I'm still wasting time before actually working, but I had my coffee while watching the news and reading a magazine, rather than getting sucked in to Jezebel for a couple of hours. Not sure it's working as well as planned, though.

Made my apple-cider pie last night and it turned out better than I had expected. Because I'm more of an improvisational baker than is probably a good idea, I used hard pear cider rather than the plain and sober kind. Still, quite good. Better than Jimmy Fallon's, even.

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"I Love to Hate You," Erasure

I'm pretty sure I danced to this at Neo last week. Ah, the Roaring Nineties.

I'm actually writing right now--one whole paragraph written. I feel guilty when I don't write, I feel guilty when I don't write enough, but at least making a stab at it for a couple of hours helps take the edge off my bad-feeling.

And then I get to make an apple pie. That's the carrot at the end of today's stick.

EtA: Two and a half pages, one scene. Maybe I should look into one of those page-counter widget things. Also, my space bar is sticky, so half ofwhatIwrote looks like that, like I'm writing in classical Latin orsomething.

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"Maggie's Farm," Bob Dylan

I don't even really know this song, but a bit of the chorus was in my head when I woke up this morning. Apparently, my subconscious wants me to know that it ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

This weekend was a wash, work-wise. And now the rest of the world is heading back to school, which is making me more and more anxious-feeling. I have two weeks until St. Happy starts up, and two weeks after that before UChaos (which is also when I'll have to hand over two chapters to my advisors), so things are not dire quite yet.

But I am going to have to start looking over syllabi soon and decide if I'm going to try to incorporate secondary criticism in my Big Willie class. I'm sure it would be useful, and the best St. Happy students would definitely benefit from that kind of rhetorical model. On the other hand, though, there's a big chunk of each class that struggles just to get a handle on plot and imagery, and I worry that throwing criticism at them would derail even that. And, from talking to a student who was in the other Willie section last spring, I found that the other instructor for this class had assigned a 15-page final paper incorporating 5 different critical sources. Which seems just evil for everyone involved. While I'm still basing my assignments on a syllabus from the tenured professor in the field, I think I'll feel better if I talk to the dept. chair about what I am and should be doing.

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"More Adventurous," Rilo Kiley

Managed about two and a half pages yesterday. I'm starting to get a feel for how much I can get done in a set time-frame.

I should set today's goals, but I have champagne-head from last night's festivities. There may be no writing today.

"Doreen," Old 97's

Again, song in my head.

Today's plan is to work through the last bit of yesterday's scene (I think I know what I'm needing to say about that) and to sketch out the next one. Then I'm off to a thing at my friend A.'s house in celebration of another friend's upcoming wedding. I'm thinking there will be lots of wine drinking and complaining about the department on A.'s balcony. Woo!

I noticed yesterday that I'm struggling both with diction (where have all my words gone?) and the physical act of typing. Don't know what happened to my touch-typing skills, beaten into me by Mr. Greaser (first name Dick, son's name Scooter) in high school. Ah, the happy days of tip-tip-typing along to a Madonna 45 on the ol' Selectric. Good times.

"It's Magic," Pilot

That's the song I woke up with in my head this morning. I had assumed it was ELO, but Google tells me it's a one-hit-wonder by a band called Pilot. Hm.

Yesterday was... not so good. My left eye leaked all day due to sinus stuff, making me unfit for anything other than shopping for shoes online and watching baseball. Will attempt again today.

And I think I'm really done with the hithering and yon-ing and have settled down here. Wordpress is lovely, but that's also where I'm keeping my reading-notes blog, and I couldn't figure out how to isolate that from the main frivolousness, so back to Blogger for me.

EtA: The goal was close-readings of two scenes (the series of close-readings makes up the middle of the chapter, where I'm talking about how a concept is being structured and manipulated). I managed two-thirds of one scene, but it's the knottiest scene I'm dealing with in this chapter, so I'll call that a minor success. Four pages, which is... ok, I guess. There's something more to be said about the closing of the scene, but I don't know what it is quite yet.

Re: Radio Silence

In case anyone's still paying attention, I've moved shop again. This time over to a simple thing that I won't feel the need to prank up with sidebars and such. Just a place to keep track of myself: http://meatcheesebun.wordpress.com/

In which I make the leap

Let it be known, I still hate Blogger. But I've made the switch over to their new template, losing my carefully (though amateurishly) crafted scheme, but gaining the ability to add things to my sidebar without journeyman-level html-wrangling.

But what I wanted to post is a delightful conversation I had with a student this week. He comes up to me after class and says, "One of my other professors, my marketing professor, was talking about Romeo and Juliet in his class."

"Oh, really?" I say.

"Yeah, but--and I may not remember the play right--he said that they were kept apart by their parents. And that's not right, is it?"

"Nope. As we discussed, their parents don't know about the marriage at all until the end."

"So why would he say that?"

"Well, because there are cultural assumptions about the play--like it's a sublime love story, it's about parental disapproval--that have very little to do with the play itself. But now you know what's really going on, because you actually read it."

"Huh."

"But I wouldn't correct your marketing professor. Just know you're right."

"Yeah, at least not until after the midterm."

In which I discover a new thing

How is it that I had not previously been aware of this information? This will be making my life easier in so many ways.

That is all. (Oh, and the chapter did, indeed, get written, in two marathon days. It's not fantastic, but it's decent and needs only minor structural and logical revisions at the moment. Yay!)

In which I make some staggering observations

• When one waits until two days before an immutable deadline to write the final 2/3 of a chapter, in addition to whipping the first 1/3 into manageable shape, the concomitant stress may result in a certain wild-eyed demeanor and uncontrollable twitches.
• When one achieves the completion of said chapter, one may spend up to five hours playing World of Warcraft in celebration.
• When one's youngest cat, a normally hefty young fellow, suddenly refuses to eat for a number of days in succession, one may become panicked. After taking said cat to the vet for a battery of tests and x-rays, one may be confused at the lack of clear diagnosis. When the vet finally suggests that the cat may be suffering from low-grade asthma and maybe the cat owner could cease smoking in the closed-up-for-winter apartment in which the cat resides, the cat owner may feel overwhelming guilt.
• When one ceases smoking in a closed-up-for-winter apartment, said apartment almost immediately becomes much better-smelling and more pleasant to be in.
  
• When one begins smoking exclusively on a semi-enclosed back porch in Chicago in January, one's cigarette consumption is almost immediately cut in half.
  
• Chicago in January is quite cold.
• When one's cat finally begins eating normally again, even begging for extra treats in the middle of the day, one may be quite happy about this turn of events. One may even feed said cat canned chicken in celebration.

Addendum 2/1:

• Just when one thinks all is well with the cat, the cat may develop a decidedly distressing UTI, resulting in even more anxiety and vet visits for all involved.
  

In which I make no small plans

Hey! Guess what I'm doing today? Writing! No, really! I have at least half a paragraph of totally brand-new stuff! And about a page of copy-pasted stuff that totally counts!

Argh. I've been entirely off my game lately, with absolutely no progress being made on either the under-revision chapter or the new one that I want to have done by the end of the month. Part of the problem is that up to this point, I've basically be re-working previous material, which is not fun, but not terrible either. And now I have to make the turn into working from scratch on the rest of the dissertation. And I haven't started from scratch in a long, long time. I think I've forgotten how to start.

If I were smart, I'd take my own advice to my students: start writing somewhere in the middle and worry about the beginning later. But I just can't. So I'm cobbling together a provisional beginning (which will actually turn up in the middle of this two-play chapter) and hating every letter of it. Bah.

But my point here wasn't so much to complain (ok, maybe a little), but to plan. I want to churn out at least three pages every non-teaching day, and get some reading done on teaching days. Weekends will be negotiable, as I suspect once I hit stride I can (and will have to) do far more than three pages at a stretch. I need a reasonable version of this material ready for public consumption by the 29th, so we'll see if the threat of a deadline will help. And then I have two conferences back to back, presenting material that's in decent shape already. Wish me luck.

In which we take more quizzes

This is because of the nail-biting question, clearly. And maybe the counting. And correcting the song. And the number of times I messed with the formatting of this stupid thing is probably testament to its truth.

My score on The Neurotic Test:


The True Neurotic
(You scored 52 anxiety, 60 awkwardness, and 51 neuroticism!)

Congratulations, you are The True Neurotic, you nail-biting, conflict-avoiding worrier, you. You're plagued by self-doubt and anxiety, which makes social activity hard--even though you may be well-liked, you feel under a storm of silent criticism. It doesn't help that people give you funny looks for organizing all your pens by color or sharpening your gnawed pencils to a delicate point.


Your high anxiety score implies that you are unable to relax, worry about the future often, and probably are plagued by irrational fears and self-doubt.

Your high awkwardness score implies that you are socially inept, probably stick out from the crowd, and feel uncomfortable in large groups of people, such as at parties.

Your high neuroticism score implies that you exhibit neurotic behaviors--probably organization, fanatic obsessions (can you recite the entire first LOTR movie?), repetitive mantras, constant checking, or orderly rituals.

Link: The Neurotic Test
(OkCupid Free Online Dating)

In which I make some lists

Hi! I'm back from my hectic holiday schedule of sleeping all day and playing nerdy computer games all night. It was exhausting, but someone had to do it.

I'm clearly in denial of the fact that the winter quarter starts on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. for me. I did manage to update the syllabus, but I haven't decided what to do about the final exam/essay option. I really don't want to read 40 essays on Why Rosalind Is Awesome, but I'm also thinking that an essay exam in a class intended for upper-division English majors does a disservice to the students.

So, looking ahead, I have two lists to make, one domestic, one academic:
Domestic:

• Laundry!
• Take down the cute li'l tinsel tree
• Organize my closet so I can dress like a grown-up again (strides were made toward this with the 10 bags of donations we dropped off on the 31st)
  
• General dusting, sweeping, vacuuming
• Call landlord about the tragically slow drains in the bathroom sink & tub
• Make a hair appointment (only three months after the last)
• Disassemble & felt sweaters for the felted-throw project I'm planning
  

Academic:

• Revise Chapter One & resubmit to committee
• Plan meeting with committee
• Draft Chapter Three
• Read a bunch of Marlowe-related stuff
• Sort & file Fall class notes
• Sort library books, renew & return
• Turn in receipts for conference-travel reimbursement
• Get an old essay into shape for journal submission
• Get Chapter One into shape for journal submission
  

Well, it doesn't look so bad laid out like that. Now I just have to put it in motion. Oh! And I have a resolution: I'm going to stop being lazy and whiny about going out to eat. This is step one of the Plan to Enjoy Chicago While We Can, which goes into motion tonight with a date with C. to go for steak frites.

Oh, yes, there's also news on the Get C. a Job front: two interviews at MLA, both of which went well, both of which were with schools located in places that wouldn't suck my soul dry. Now comes the fun part of waiting for the campus-visit calls, as well as news from the schools that weren't interviewing at MLA.