Sunday, August 22, 2010

And so it begins... again.

The MLA job search list doesn't come out for almost another month, and already Brownie has found a position for NEXT August to apply for.  Meaning that any possible sense of "yes, we could actually settle in and stay in this city" is already obliterated.  I figure this is probably not all bad, in that it's good to remember that we very well could be moving again in 50-ish weeks, but it's also like &^%%%*OKIGDKF_)%^&FUCKING%T^Y&DAMMIT NOT AGAIN. 

And so we begin another year of Brownie sending applications off to the void of department application committees, whence they will never be heard from again.  Ever.  A few years ago, I was pointed by a good friend in the direction of a blog whose author was going through a rhet/comp job search and posting the rejection letters with commentary.  The blog was awesome (and even more amusing to me was that the blogwriter had decided not to apply for the opening at the school I was doing my Ph.D. work at because the Humanities Center website was WAYYYY to hippydippy to bother with).  Meanwhile, last year, I don't think Brownie got enough rejections from schools that he could have done a blog mocking them - he wouldn't have had more than about 15 entries despite the 70-odd applications he sent out.

So, if you somehow trip over this blog and you're a member of an academic search committee:  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF CEILING CAT SEND OUT REJECTION LETTERS IN A TIMELY MANNER.  Many, many lives are depending on the knowledge contained in those letters.  It's much nicer to know for sure that one has been rejected than to sit around and wonder.

The above-yelled advice goes for anyone else who is in the position to reject someone from a job:  please just send out a rejection letter/email/note/whatever.  In the 20-ish applications I've submitted for jobs, I've gotten exactly one rejection.  Everything else (so far, anyway) has been abject silence, which makes me feel less worthy of respect than even a rejection would.

My personal job search boils down to a giant quandary (which I'm about to explain poorly - my apologies).  As of now, I'm unemployed.  I started a beer blog (which I'm not linking to from here because there's a fairly limited number of people that need to know who the author of *this* blog is, given the amount of whining I do here).  I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to use that to start freelancing the occasional beer article.  In the meantime, I would like an office-y sort of job with a vaguely respectable paycheck.  However, I have no idea how long it will take me to find one.  So I run into a problem:  there's a chance we could be moving halfway across the bleeding country again next year if Brownie gets a job somewhere.  Which would mean I would have to quit any job I were to get.*  So I'm not sure how long I want to spend trying to get a "real" job before I decide to put that on hold pending it looks like we will be moving.  Meanwhile, I applied to Borders, but I've heard nothing yet even from them.  I suppose Starbucks is next.  Or a liquor store. 

My dissertation is still a douchebag, and my relationship with it is still strained.

The good thing:  having nothing else to do, I've been plowing away at novel attempt number 2.  There hasn't been tons of writing, but there's been a ton of worldbuilding and storyboarding and at least 2 chapters worth of writing.  I'm playing around with point of view stuff right now and having a blast with it.  I think the fact that I can at least spend my nearly limitless amounts of free time working on writing has been what's kept me from going nuts during this umemployment phase of life.  I feel like I'm doing something productive, even if it ends up being only to amuse myself.  I will publish a novel SOMEDAY.  It may not be this one (it sure as hell won't be the last one - that was a disaster!), but it will happen.  Dammit. :D

Good thing #2:  I'm wearing BPAL Sundew today and it smells GORGEOUS.

* Brownie says that if I were to get a kick ass job and love it, that we'd stay no matter what happens on the academic search for him.  I think it's sweet of him, but a long shot - I really haven't the foggiest fucking idea what to do with myself, job-wise, so I think it's unlikely that we'd be staying because of me.  Not impossible, but definitely unlikely.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Moving in something under 33 hours

So things are batshit now and have been for a while.  I'd apologize for the lack of posting, but I haven't really been in the headspace for it.  Anyway, the academic job search thing turned out not the way we'd initially wanted it, so Brownie and I are moving in with my parents in a few days.  As my parents live six states away from where Brownie and I currently are, this has been something of an undertaking.

Most of the undertaking is ready to go, at least - 95% of our shit is on a truck in the parking lot right now, rather than in our apartment.  All we have to do tomorrow is turn in the cable box/modem, get our tv and mattress on the truck, eat dinner/say goodbye to Brownie's parents, and then go to sleep.  So that's tomorrow and it'll be sad and hard to say goodbye to his parents knowing that we won't see them next week as per usual.  But for tonight, I'm sad about my bartenders.

Almost exactly two years ago, Brownie and I discovered the bestest little pub in the universe roughly a town over from where we've been living.  By the end of the first visit, we'd discovered that they had a good beer selection, knowledgeable bartenders, and at least one bartender that was willing to shoot the shit for a few minutes when he wasn't busy with something else.  Within three visits, we knew a few names and had discovered that the on tap beer selection changed frequently.  Within a month, we were firmly regulars. 

Two years later, we've just said goodbye to a whole bunch of friends and it hurts.  I remember this feeling from when I moved 1200 miles away from home the first time - saying goodbye to everyone hurt like hell, and every time I've seen them after that has been slightly off, as though knowing that we're spending time together more because we were friends than because we're still active parts of each others' lives.  I guess I'm assuming now that this will happen again, that even with the advent of facebook and whatnot, I'll never be as close to my friends there as I have been.  And this is all natural and whatever, and I've got some really amazingly fantastic friends that I'll be going home to as Brownie and I relocate this weekend.  And this all reminds me that if next year's job search *is* successful and we end up moving *again* that I'm likely to find friends wherever we go that I will in turn miss if/when we leave them.

But right now I'm sad, and I was half in tears while we were hanging out at the bar tonight, and I'm half in tears now and very, very surprised to find just how much it hurts to leave everyone there.  And tomorrow night will be my last night in town, and Saturday night will be spent in a faraway plains state with two very freaked out kitties, and Sunday night will be spent at my parents in yet another, even farther away plains state.  And life will move on and maybe someday I'll become gainfully employed and someday even farther away than that, maybe I'll manage to publish a novel.  But not right now.  Right now I will pet my cat, and I will mope, and I will hope my friends have a good evening.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Recipe time: Spicy Fruity Shrimp

I've got a bunch of recipes that have come about from me futzing about in the kitchen trying to figure out how to use stuff up.  I'll post them from time to time.  The thing with me and cooking is that I tend not to measure anything exactly unless I'm baking or brewing - the upshot is that the measurements here are best guesses of approximately how much I've dumped into something, and the times are less likely to be times than they are "it'll look roughly like x when it's ready."

So here goes:  Spicy Fruity Shrimp on Quinoa

Note:  I've been making this with Pineapple-Habanero Salsa that Brownie and I pick up from a local salsa guy at pretty much every major festival in the area.  The stuff is sweet and hot as all hell.  As far as I can tell, however, pretty much any fruity salsa will work.  The trick is to go a level or  two hotter than you normally would (i.e., I'd normally never go near anything with habaneros in it), because there's some dairy in the sauce that brings the heat level down a bit closer to tolerable.  If you can't find any superhot fruity salsa, get some not-so-hot fruity salsa and throw in a chopped jalapeno or habanero (seed it first) or a few drops of hot sauce.

You'll need:
- 1lb raw shrimp
- approximately 1 1/2 cups of hot, fruity salsa of some kind or another (and maybe a chili or two to heat things up if the salsa isn't already sufficiently hot)
- approximately 1 cup of pineapple (or mango, depending on what you can get ahold of)(peach might be awesome, too)
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 1 cup quinoa (make sure to rinse the holy hell out of this:  quinoa naturally produces a chemical on its surface that acts as a near-preternaturally-effective laxative.  Rinsing (even just with water) will knock this right off, and the quinoa will be awesome.)
- 2 cups chicken broth (or veggie broth or water)
- 1/3 cup cream cheese (heavy cream will work too, but I didn't have it once and threw in the cream cheese and ended up liking it better that way)

Directions:
Peel and devein the shrimp.  Toss the veins because they're nasty.  Take the shrimp shells and throw them into a pot with the chicken broth.  Let this simmer for about five minutes - the shells will turn pink and the broth will take their flavor.  Once the shells have gone pink and everything smells nice and pretty, strain the broth to get rid of the shrimp shells (which can now be tossed).  Set aside (and rinse the pot, because you'll need it again in a few minutes).  Meanwhile, toss the raw shrimp in with the salsa and toss it around until the shrimp is covered.

Next, heat a drizzle of oil in a large-ish saute pan, and throw in the onion and bell pepper.  Let them cook panuntil softened, stirring as necessary.  When the onion/pepper mix is about ready, heat another drizzle of oil (about a tablespoon) in the pot from earlier.  Toss the quinoa in the oil and let it toast for a minute or two in the heated oil (this makes it slightly nuttier).  Then throw in the onion/pepper mixture and the shrimpy broth from earlier (some cumin might be awesome as well, if you're so inclined).  Plop a lid on the pot to cover it most of the way and let it go for about 15-20 minutes.  If, at the end of 20 minutes, the liquid isn't gone, pop the lid off, stir, and let it go until the liquid is pretty much gone.  Let it sit for a minute or two when it's all cooked.

Meanwhile, dump the shrimp/salsa mixture and the pineapple (or whatever fruit)(and any chili you might be adding) into the saute pan and cook until the shrimp has turned a pretty shade of pink, stirring and flipping the shrimp as necessary to accomplish this task.  Meanwhile, the liquid level in the pan is going to increase some - when the shrimp is mostly done, crank the heat up and boil off some of the excess liquid until there's only roughly 3/4-1 cup of liquid left.  At that point, turn the heat down, throw the cream cheese into the shrimp mixture and stir until the cream cheese has melted into the sauce.  Taste the sauce and adjust seasonings if necessary.

When everything's ready, plop some quinoa on the plate and spoon some shrimp, fruit and sauce over the top.  Enjoy. 

Boozy pairings:  a Reisling works well with this, as does a fairly citrus-tinged IPA (Bridgeport would be a great example).

The leftovers store and reheat beautifully.  This recipe makes somewhere in the 3-4 servings range, depending on how hungry you are.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Waiting Game

I had this dream this morning that I woke up from going AAAAAAAAAA.  In the dream, Brownie comes in from a run, flops on the couch with a glass of water, and answers his phone.  On the phone is Department Head from BFE University, the one we've been waiting to hear from.  The phone call is to tell Brownie that he has indeed gotten the position.  Brownie accepts.  Brownie is then given a selection of happy, bouncing, roughly 9 month old babies to choose from, because apparently in the unconscious recesses of my brain job = noisy, crying, pooping pile of responsibility that will occasionally coo.

At least it was different from the other dreams I've been having for the past week - those have all been tornado dreams.

I think I've gone a bit nuts.

The thing that bugs me with the dream I had this morning was that it was all and entirely about Brownie.  I was just a passive observer.  I suppose this is how most of my life feels at the moment - everything is on hold until we find out if he's gotten this bloody job and we can start planning the move, I can start applying for jobs, etc.  I keep hoping U of BFE will call this minute, or this minute, or this, just so that we *know* finally.  So that I can know for sure if my upcoming year involves finding a new job and career path, or if it involves being able to spend as much time as possible writing in an attempt to turn writing into a paycheck.  For now, however, we wait.

And in waiting, all I've managed to do today is some arm weights, take a shower, eat some hummus, scribble this out, wait for beer o'clock.

So I'll end with a highlight of the week (and leave the trip to NYC for anniversary number two for a later post):  after writing the post immediate prior to this, I hopped on facebook and looked up the one person I had managed to stay in contact with for a few years after Carleton.  I found her.  It's really, really awesome to be catching up with her.  So YAY! for that - that's been fantastic.

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Rusted Root of my memory

My iTunes Genius threw Rusted Root's "Send Me on My Way" onto a playlist that I had it generated based on Cursive's "the Recluse" (the latter being descriptive of both my physical being and my state of mind lately).  I haven't heard "Send Me on My Way" in a few months (it's buried on some playlist on my iPod, so it does pop into my consciousness occasionally).  It's one of those songs, though, that has an extremely strong memory association, one that pops briefly into mind every time I hear it.  The strange thing (to me, anyway) is that the associated memory isn't one that has any strong emotional pull or any real significance in my life at all.

During the summer in between junior and senior year of high school, I spent three weeks at a Summer Writing Camp at Carleton College.  Carleton is a microscopic, highly-regarded liberal arts college in Northfield, MN, a tiny town of about 15,000 roughly an hour southeast of the Twin Cities.  The writing camp was, despite years of whining, begging, pleading and arguing, my only summer camp experience.  We slept in rooms in the dorms, had a midnight "curfew" (meaning that the RAs walked by and did room checks every night to make sure we were back), spent a few hours most days in a combination of composition and literature type classes, quite a bit of time writing and critiquing each other's writing, and the rest of the time playing Ultimate Frisbee, listening to people play guitar, flirting, swimming, writing more, dancing, jumping through thunderstorm-created puddles, being eaten alive by the omnipresent bird-sized mosquitoes of Minnesota.  It was idyllic.  I gained a much better sense of how to construct an essay and how to brainstorm in a way that worked with my erratic thought patterns; my poetry remained (as it does to this day) a dismal mess.

And I had a boy breakthrough, as it were, thanks to crushing on this guy Joe-Lastnameforgotten.  It was the first time in my life that flirting actually seemed to work (successful flirting was not the breakthrough):  I managed to get to cuddle with him while hanging out by campfires and splash with him in the pool, and (exciting for a relatively inexperienced virgin) got a lengthy post-curfew backrub while out by a swingset, flopped in the grass and being eaten alive by bugs.  I only managed to avoid getting busted for getting in late because my roommate told the RA I was in the bathroom when she came by for the roomcheck.  Yet after the backrub incident, Joe backed way the hell off and stopped talking to me altogether.  In normal (i.e., back home) circumstances, I would have wondered and angsted and avoided confrontation like it was my job.  However, being that I was 500 miles away from home and knowing that if I made things awkward, I'd never see him again after that week, I cornered him and asked him what the hell his deal was.  And it worked:  he explained that the girl back home he'd had a thing for forever had let him know she wanted to try dating when he got back, so he'd cut the flirting with me when he'd heard from her.  So the breakthrough was this:  I figured out that it was a hell of a lot quicker to just ask a guy what the hell than it was to try and figure it out for myself, and that whatever answer I got from the guy was likely to be more accurate than anything I came up with on my own.

None of this, however, has anything to do with the "Send Me on My Way" memory.  The picture that comes into my head with absolute clarity nearly every time I hear that song is banal in the most everyday type of way:  I had just eaten lunch with some friends and was wandered by the post office in the Student Union on my way back to my room to get my stuff for an afternoon writing critique group.  Sitting at the post office desk was a guy with shaggy blond hair, baggy shorts, a ratty tshirt, and Birkenstocks (pretty much the Carleton uniform) - he had to be a work study student, leaning way back in his chair with a dog-eared copy of Neitzsche and talking to some girl that was leaning into a doorframe on the wall opposite where I was standing.  There were papers and boxes everywhere, posters of every imaginable band crammed  He had "Send Me on My Way" blasting on a boombox.  I got my mail (only a note from the camp telling everyone we'd be heading up to the Minneapolis Zoo that Saturday) and wandered off.  That's it.  Yet for some reason, that's what enters my head when I hear "Send Me on My Way."

I don't know.  Maybe I had concocted some idea that college would look like that - easy and relaxed with Rusted Root playing everywhere, long conversations about philosophy in between games of Ultimate.  Maybe it was just that I hadn't heard the song in a while and noticed it because I liked it.  It could be just that it was a particularly relaxed moment in a happy stretch of summer days.  But there it is:  "Send Me on My Way" reminds me of the post office in the student union at Carleton College.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

I promise I'm not dead or anything

I've been out in the great Midwest the past couple of weeks, marrying off a friend (whose hellish wedding probably deserves a post), spending a weekend in Tulsa, hanging out with my brother and so on.  It's been a strange combination of hellaciously busy and completely bored while waiting for bridefriend to bother getting back to me, etc.

Anyway, the actual news-not-news is that the university we've been waiting on to find out if Brownie has a job with them this upcoming year has told him they'll get back to him sometime next week.  This means two things:  1) after next week, we'll be able to make firm plans on where/when/how we'll move (FINALLY) and 2) next week, until they get back to Brownie, is going to be filled with him being anxious, not sleeping and so on.  I'm going to try and suggest he spend most of it cooking or something like that, because the anxiety can be really difficult to cope with (for both of us, honestly - his anxiety has a tendency to fill whatever space he's in) and I'm trying to come up with ways for him to be busy.

As for my preferences, to the degree I'm allowing myself to have any, I'm not sure.  On one hand, it'd be awesome if Brownie gets the job because that means we'll have at least one guaranteed income next year *phew*.  OTOH, the job is in a small PA town, meaning that it'll be really difficult for me to find a worthwhile job.  I don't relish the thought of sitting around endlessly jobhunting next year.  Brownie has told me that I can just stay home and write next year if I'd like, and I do relish the thought, but I need to have some sort of job that will allow me to get the hell out of the house sometimes or I'll go batshit insane -- a feeling compounded by the fact that if we end up in said small PA town, I wouldn't know anyone at all besides my husband.

Meanwhile, if we come to the Midwest (back home for me), it'd be much easier for me to find a job, and we've got a huge social network out here, and there's generally more to do.  I'd be much happier on a day-to-day basis.  However, if we move out here, Brownie won't be teaching anything in any kind of academic capacity unless something really strange happens and he manages not only to get into the adjunct pool at any of the local places, but also manages to get a course or three to teach. 

The problem is that being in academics, a year off can be nightmarish to explain on the job market.  He says he feels like if we move here, he'll be giving up on a long-fought-for, not-quite-achieved dream.  That's understandably difficult, and so while I'd be happier in the Midwest, I kinda hope we end up in PA so that he can have the change to do another round on the academic job market, since that's what he wants.  If that round doesn't work out, however, it's over.  Period.  My choice on that.  I can stand to go through this one more time, but after that I'd like to know that we're going to be able to settle down for a while and get around to starting a family and so on.  He's agreed.  The whole academic job search thing is too big a strain to repeat any more than that.

So that's that for the moment.  I hate the waiting, but I'm at least used to it by now.  I feel like that's all I've been doing for close to a year now.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

omg tvtropes WHY

ARGHH.

I somehow just managed to waste something on the order of 6+ total hours today reading tvtropes.org. 

This is embarassing.  (Also I was warned, but that's irrelevant.  I really thought that when my brother told me not ever to go on that website ever because I would never read anything else again that he was kidding.  He wasn't kidding.)

My attempt at self-justification:
- it's an intelligent website: clever, funny, well-written and thoughtful
- it really is funny as hell (e.g., referring to a fantasy religion which bears a distinct resemblance to Christianity but which cannot use Jesus as its central figure due to being made up or whatnot as a Crystal Dragon Jesus)
- it covers all kinds of examples of particular tropes in action as it were
- it's one of the most hyperlink-happy sites I've ever seen, so that it's almost impossible to make it through an article without seeing 2-3 links worth clicking on (the Crystal Dragon Jesus article leads me to click on Dead Unicorn Trope, Power Crystal, and Messiah, among others).  The upshot is that by clicking on Dead Unicorn Trope, I then get another fun page with a clear description of the trope, plenty of examples, myriad hyperlinks, and an admonishment only to add an example if one is sure that it really an example - i.e., recognize the size of one's reference pool (Small Reference Pool then comes up, which was the next thing I clicked on)

Anyway, I'm way more click happy here than I've ever been on wikipedia (or really any wiki at all).  And I feel... not particularly thrilled with myself for it, even though it did make the Ritual Saturday Night SyFy Movie Fest with Brownie more entertaining ("look!  It's the First Girl!  She'll be the romantic interest...").

Tomorrow will have to include no tvtropes.  SRSLY.

It will, however, include Brownie's hooding ceremony.  So YAY for Brownie's hooding, and I should go to bed so that I'm functional enough to help railroad the 30-odd people that will be there for it tomorrow.

Friday, May 21, 2010

A mini book review and some other thoughts

My main internet forum of choice has been mostly down for days now.  It's making me half-nuts having it gone, even though I've lately been making a concerted attempt to keep myself off the internet as much as possible because I feel like it's sucking away my ability to concentrate -- and this coming from someone who's already ADHD.

However, even what with trying to spend less time on the internet, said forum is still very much the backbone of my non-Brownie social life - it's where I get the vast majority of intelligent conversation, lulz, and genuine friendship.  I hate having it gone.  I hate not knowing if there have been any new datewrecks, any job interviews, wild familyfail stories, or whatever else may be going on.  So to those who might be reading:  hello, mah h0rs, and my the forumfail be fixed as soon as possible.

Other than that, I've devoured the City of Bones/Ashes/Light over the past few days, which were generally quite awesome.  I'd highly recommend them to anyone into YA Fantasy.  Highly.  Clare does a great job with urban fantasy, melding the fantastic aspects of the story seemlessly with the weird awesomeness of New York City, and she does a particularly good job of getting the teenage mentality down well:  the characters are flawed, but not detestably so; they have a tendency to believe their own ideas a little too fervently; they don't always understand themselves or what they're doing, but they're not idiots either.  They're teenagers who, despite special abilities, act more like real teenagers than the twenty-somethings that populate teen dramas on tv.  I have my gripes with the series (namely that Clary's special ability, once discovered, seems to fix everything a little too easily), but I really enjoyed it.

Thinking about it, that's probably the closest approximation to a book review I've ever had on this blog.

Anyway.  On the writing front:  the book idea which I've been playing with that I mentioned in the last post is, if I didn't mention it then, YA fantasy.  Partially because that's the age of the main characters, partially because the idea itself is firmly fantasy, and partially because YA fantasy has been the vast majority of my reading lately simply because I've had more fun reading it than I've had reading anything in YEARS.  I love teenagers-as-chosen-ones: they're already busy trying to understand themselves in normal life, trying to understand where/how they fit into the world and what might begin to form their place therein, so putting them in the position of "chosen one" as it were both gives them a way to frame the identity-angst as well as a way to begin to work their way out of it and toward a better sense of self-understanding.  Anyway, between loving the genre and having a hook that fits better there than anywhere else, I'm playing with it.  If it ends up going somewhere beyond the roughly 2K words I have now, great.  If it doesn't, then that's fine too.  When it gets farther along, maybe I'll actually post a sample.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Time to move on?

Sign I'm not the dominant one in the relationship:  It just took me five solid minutes to get the cat (Pigger rather than Nunkin) to move off of her spot on the couch in the study so that I could sit there.  It's the only spot in the office where the internet cord reaches my laptop.  I *hate* that we don't have wireless.

Meanwhile, I randomly got an idea for a story of some sort of fantasy type which I'm now playing around with.  Somehow I ended up deciding it would be a good (or at least entertaining) idea to make my facebook status a request for ideas on multidimensional MacGuffins.  One friend suggested an omnispatial nexus key which, if used, would disrupt the fabric of the space-time continuum.  I love the idea but it won't work with the outlines of the story as they're working their way through my mind.  Meanwhile, I wrote roughly 1000 words of starting conversational stuff and showed it to Brownie on Friday (who has never actually seen any of my fictional writing before, but then neither has anyone else for that matter, something I badly need to change).  He actually liked it (I think - I don't think he was being kind), and we spent most of the afternoon talking through ideas before finding out that a friend was having something of a life crisis and spending the evening with her helping her talk stuff out.

So back to the writing.  I don't want to get into the premise yet, and I need to flesh out the plot/world more before I can write too much.  But I keep thinking that I could do something with this in a way I couldn't with the story I've been working on - that story is too character/not enough plot to be particularly marketable.  I think maybe I could get somewhere worthwhile with the idea I have now.  But (again), at the same time I'm swirling with thoughts that I should finish the project I'm already working on (just to prove to myself that I can, maybe?) and more thoughts that I should be finishing the dissertation (but still don't have any motivation).  So I feel like I'm half-nuts, like I shouldn't be grabbing onto any idea that comes by and start scribbling.  However, I kind of feel at the same time like I very much should grab onto an idea when it presents itself and seems worth working on, because one of these ideas might actually pan out, and I don't think my last project really will.  I'm not convinced it's marketable.

So maybe I shouldn't feel bad about abandoning one project in favor of another.  I can't really say that anything I've written has been a waste of time, even if I don't think I'll be able to publish it.  I've learned from it, and I know I'll learn more from whatever I end up writing that holds my interest.  And then maybe someday I'll manage to publish something. 

However, I still need a day job.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A Love Note to Ugly Nail Polish

My nails are currently polished in OPI's Fiercely Fiona, a sort of color that can best be described as somewhere between the color of pollen coating a car and highlighter yellow a few ticks down on the grayscale.  It's, well, pretty hideous.  It's also noticeable.  Not blinding, just noticeable.  As in I keep seeing people look at my nails and then fail to mention them.  I find this deeply amusing.  It was an unholy streaky mess to apply, taking four coats to even out all the way and get rid of the nail line.  I should hate this polish.

I've had this hideous, awful, slightly ill-looking color on my nails now since Sunday (still chip-free!), and it has filled me with glee every time I see it.  I adore it in its silliness, its inability to fit in, the fact that it clashes with everything in my wardrobe except for the unseen stripes on a particularly bright pair of underwear.  It's like the nail equivalent of my purple-hair days in college (also known as "the days after I'd discovered fun hair dye but before I'd discovered the wonders and glories of teal, which all told looks much better with ginger hair than does purple").

But why like it?  Am I just being perverse?  Am I trying to find some way to express my "I don't think you'd fit in here" side just as I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze my insanity into a possibly corporate mold?  Am I trying to take something generally coded as feminine - nicely manicured nails - and change it into a statement of something other than beauty, thereby saying that polished nails don't have to be standard feminine beauty, can be androgynous, can, in fact, be ugly?  Am I trying to find something beautiful in the ugliness?  Is it some empty postmodern statement on consumerism?

No.  Honestly, it's probably for the lulz.  I just like the polish.

I do, however, have to wonder why on earth OPI thought "dirty-pollen-yellow-two-shades-away-from-sinus-infection-snot creme" would make a good polish color.  But then, I'm the weirdo who bought it.

As a side note:  http://stupidnailpolishnames.blogspot.com/ is pretty awesome.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

In Limbo

So grades are done with the exception of two potatoes who haven't gotten around to turning in their final papers.  So I await their final papers, sending them nagging emails reminding them that they'll flunk if the papers don't get turned in.  Not my fault - department policy.  I'd rather they just get them in so I don't have to deal with them anymore.  I just want this done and off my back.

Having everything else done and calculated and ready to enter means that I can shower and go buy myself some nail polish, which was the treat I promised myself for getting through the remains of the grading. 

Once the grades are in, it's done.  Like really, truly done done.  And I can find a job doing something else and hope that one day over the next couple of years my motivation to finish the dissertation returns in full enough force that I finish the stupid thing. 

I'm still not sad it's over, so I'm assuming at this point that I'm really not going to be.  Honestly, though, it's hard to feel much of anything.  I have NO idea at this point what's going to happen in my life over the next few months, no idea of what to expect, no real way to make plans.  Brownie had an interview with a college in BFE of this state and they called his references, who reported that and sounded as though college in BFE is really interested in him.  We haven't been to the town at all, so we're trying to keep an open mind, but the truth is that neither one of us is even slightly excited by this prospect.  The idea of packing up and moving back to KC instead sounds so much better, so much more likely to bring employment for both of us, but it doesn't sound definite enough for me to want to hope for it.  Not knowing what to think or what to hope for or what not to hope for so that I don't end up disappointed again has become an exercise in teeth-grinding. 

I guess what I do for the moment is go shower (finally, at 2:30), drag myself out to the bookstore to look at books on writing resume cover letters for a while, pick up my nail polish, grab stuff to make salmon/asparagus pasta for dinner, and then flop with a book or with my laptop and novel for a while.  Something to distract me from me.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

An email I can't believe I had to send

Quick backstory: 
One of Brownie's uncles is a born again Christian of the Conservative Glenn Beck-loving mold.  Over the past few months, he's taken to sending out a bunch of tasteless jokes about how liberals are all unpatriotic idiots, reminders that Jesus loves good mommies, and various bits of tea party bullshit.  He's been mass emailing these to everyone in the family and some friends (from his work email, which I find tasteless as well, but whatever).  I've been ignoring/deleting them, hoping at some point that he'd figure out that spamming friends and family is not a good way to get his point across yet is, well, rude.

This afternoon he sent out a forward of some Shepherd Smith (a FoxNews anchor) insanity about how Obama never takes his wife to Muslim countries because he's Muslim and doesn't force his wife to follow Sharia Law or some such bullshit.  I'd post a link here but I honestly don't feel like helping anyone to read the steaming pile of idiotic faux-rationality FoxNews came up with - I don't like spreading lies.

Anyway, I'm fed up, so after stewing about it for hours, I finally sent the following email:


Dear Uncle _____,


I've been enduring these Conservative emails from you with no comment because I felt, as family, that I should. However, you've now crossed a line in my eyes. In sending this email, you've stated a belief that Obama is a Muslim. Per the link that Aunt _____ sent out [a reply-all with a link to the Snopes article on whether or not Obama is Muslim] and, well, reality, Obama is not a Muslim. He is a Christian, of the UCC denomination. Here is a link to an article from Newsweek that eloquently describes Obama's Christian faith and his journey to it: http://www.newsweek.com/id/145971 The article is from Newsweek, a publication I frankly find to be Conservative; as I assume you will most likely see Newsweek as being somehow Liberal, I'm hoping that maybe we can ultimately agree on it as a fairly neutral, factual source.


To continue, however, were Obama in fact a Muslim, the fact would be irrelevant; this country has no official state religion, ergo being Muslim would not disqualify him from the job he was elected to do. Furthermore, to imply that being Muslim means that Obama (or anyone else of that faith) might be working against the best wishes of this country is deeply prejudicial. That sentiment insults not only the President, but the citizens of this country who used their best judgment to elect him in a free and open election and all the members of the Muslim faith worldwide. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is no more the poster child for Islam than Timothy McVeigh is for Christianity.

It saddens me to see an email like this in my inbox, filled with prejudice and hatred, from someone of whom I had thought better. In consequence, I am requesting my removal from this email list. The insult to the President, who, as President of the country I love and Commander-in-Chief to the Armed forces, demands my respect, is beyond what I find tolerable. I can roll my eyes at stupid jokes, but I can't roll my eyes at this. My sense of patriotism demands more of me than an eyeroll. Please stop sending me these forwards.

Yours in Christ,

Your niece-in-law, nunkin, the embodiment of the secular-progressive-liberal-socialist-communist that Rush Limbaugh and FoxNews warned you about, and yet still a Christian and a patriotic American. +

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Happy Gurglings about Reading

I flipped the name of the blog again because the most recent name didn't quite sum up anything I felt toward anything anymore.  So that's that.

I've been largely offline for the last two weeks or so. I feel like I keep missing things going on in my online life - I have only a vague idea of what's going on in the lives of most of my online friends, I've barely been on facebook, I even managed to forget about farmville long enough to have some crops wilt.  I feel bad (mostly about missing stuff in my friends' lives), but.

Instead of being online, I've managed to read more in the last two weeks than I have since my exams. It continues to be awesomesauce.  I nabbed the brandspankingnew Philip Pullman novel on Friday and am all kinds of excited to read it.  At the moment I'm finishing Alison Croggon's Pellinor series - I think Pullman will go right after that.  Maybe I'll throw a review up when I'm finished since it's still so new.

I know I've already posted once about how happy I've been devouring books, but it's exhilarating.  I have stories flying through my head all the time now, these incandescent pieces of loveliness that remind me that there really are ways to escape the inside of my own head, or which, conversely, remind me that the inside of my own head has stories of its own that want out too.  I need to stop reading long enough to write some more but haven't wanted to. 

As I read, I'm ripping apart everything as I go along, examining how authors have gone about dealing with plot, character development, description, all that - all the stuff I never looked at while ripping apart lit for grad school.  It continually boggles my mind that after ten years of English (from the three years I worked through the major in college to the two years of my MA and five (so far) years of my Ph.D.), I've never gotten to talk about anything of those things, never really had time to examine the craft of writing for the sake of writing.  I can read and interpret ANYTHING at this point, but when it comes to thinking about the writing, this is all still fairly new to me.  It occurs to me from time to time that I should look up some books on writing and read those, see what others find important, but I haven't quite wanted to do that yet.  I think at the moment that I'm happy with what I'm picking up, and I'll move on to what others have picked up on soonish.  This isn't a "my thoughts will be more better and smarter than theirs" type feeling - it's an attempt to get some sort of idea as to what I think about things before I start to get into the prevailing wisdom of the world, much the same way I'd research a text by reading it, developing the beginnings of my own thought patterns about it, and then going off to read articles about it in order to challenge and develop my thinking even further.

AKA, I'm approaching writing now roughly like I'd approach dissertation research. *headdesk*  The more things change, as it were.

Monday, April 26, 2010

A semi-farewell to teaching

I've been an antisocial flake the last few days.  It may have been the overkill from super-social Friday night out with the department followed by the Saturday of chili fest/Ben Folds concert/getting drunk with Brownie and department close friend followed by the Sunday hangover nursing and then dinner at the inlaws. 

Whatever it is, by the time I woke up hungover Sunday morning, I was pretty convinced I didn't want to see anyone other than my cats for the next week.  This is, of course, impossible, so I got up this morning after a scant 4 hours of sleep (including an hour of semi-consciously smacking the sleep alarm, resulting in my arrival on campus about ten minutes late).  Then I got to tutor more sessions than I've had this semester, all of which were people who were having problems brainstorming, and then I got to go babysit my class while they did peer evals for their final papers, which itself turned into tutoring-like sessions with my own students who also seemed incapable of brainstorming on their own.

I completely understand that people get writer's block and get stuck on what it is they're trying to say.  I wish that had been what my students/tutoring sessions wanted.  But they didn't want to be unstuck.  They didn't want to take the time to come up with their own ideas at all.  The worst was a reflection paper on a group project.  The girl came in and sat down with an assignment that asked her to write five pages about what her group did.  She had one page written and "nothing else to say."  She expected me to tell her what to write.  I'm not exaggerating, sadly: the words "I don't know what to write now so what do you think I should write" actually came out of her mouth.  So I sat, staring at her assignment sheet, asking her what they did for the group project, trying to come up with any question I could to give her something to think about.  But she didn't want my questions.  She wanted me to tell her exactly what she should put in each paragraph.

I am not going to miss this.

I do wonder if it will feel weird next fall when classes start and I'm not walking into one, gradebook and lesson plans in hand.  I can sit here and think about that, that I will never do this again, never teach again.  I feel like I should feel sad or strange or something about it.  Perhaps even relief.  At the moment, however, I feel nothing about it.  A blank. Is it because I still have to tutor that this hasn't hit yet?  Will it hit?

Friday, April 23, 2010

On resumes and rediscovering reading

I have a workable draft of my resume finally (erm, well, I've really had one since Sunday evening, but whatever).  So that's good.  That means I can stop with some of the overthinking and the "OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR SEVEN YEARS OF MY LIFE" angsty bullshit that's made the process of writing (and re-writing, and re-writing) it so ridiculous and painful.  Because really, one's spouse's first reaction to reading one's resume should NOT be this:  "this makes you sound like you hate yourself." 

After that reaction, I took a day off and then returned to it.  Rephrased.  Rethought.  Rephrased more.  Talked it out with people.  I feel better now.

Possible interview question: variation on a theme of "what do you consider to be your biggest problem in the workplace?"
Answer:  I overthink things.  I can overthink ANYTHING.  It's like a crippling mental disorder talent.

Resume aside, I'm down to only a couple of classes before the teaching portion of my career is (99% likely) finished.  This puts me at 3 paychecks before I hit the abyss of not knowing where my money will come from.  So that's... terrifying. 

The dissertation really is on hold now, pretty much officially, until Brownie and I are moved wherever we end up moving and I'm in a better head space to deal with it.  The department, bless it, is covering my tuition until it's done.  I actually feel good about this, and in feeling good about this, have been reconceptualizing how I want to go about arguing certain aspects of it.  I had been arguing about institutional change, but what I've really been *trying* (albeit failing) to get across is that the point is to look at the effect of fiction on institutional change, which really then is the effect of fiction on our understanding and creation of reality.  Which, oddly, seems more manageable to me than institutional change itself.  And more fun.  So Imma let that keep simmering in the dark reaches of my brainspace until I'm ready to return.

Meanwhile, I've been devouring books like they're about to poof out of existence.  Lots of books.  The Hunger Games (and Catching Fire)(to feed my Gale crush) and The Elegance of the Hedgehog and Misconception and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You and so on.  And it has been magnificent.  Like rediscovering an old, dear friend.

It feels almost strange to say "I love to read."  In some ways, I've always felt that way - I wouldn't have pursued a Ph.D. in English without loving to read.  In so many other, more important ways, however, it truly has been a rediscovery:  the joys of perusing books in the book store, of losing track of time while completely immersed in another world, of stories, plots and characters.  For so much of graduate school, reading has been associated with guilt:  if I was something I enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, then I felt guilty for it.  If I read something for class/exams/dissertation work, then I didn't enjoy it; in not enjoying it, my ADHD would flare; in the flare of the ADHD would come distraction, lesser comprehension, and more guilt.  Over the past seven years, reading has been so intricately entwined with guilt that I've largely avoided it when unnecessary.  Suddenly (almost unconsciously) letting go of the guilt has let me read again.  And that makes me really, really happy.  (As a side note, this is the first post that has had a reading tag. That says a lot to me.)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Woe

It's one of those days where I've spent the vast majority of it staring listlessly at my computer trying to get myself to do something that someone else would deem productive and have gotten nowhere.  I'm waiting for another 45 minutes until I can leave to go do a Zumba class all the way across town with Brownie's mom and aunt.  I hate exercising that late - it throws off my schedule and pretty much guarantees that I'll be up until 3am.  Joy.

I sent Brownie my resume such as it is at the moment in hopes that he'll have some suggestions.  I've only managed to come up with four bullet points of what my job as a teacher entails, which doesn't seem like enough for something I've been doing for 6 years - essentially for the job that is the backbone of my resume.  I can't decide if I think I need to try and break things up more (i.e., am I squeezing too much info into each line) or if I'm forgetting things that seem so obvious to me that I'm forgetting to write them down or what.  Part of me is wondering what the hell I think I'm doing trying to get out of academics anyway, wondering who is going to want me when there are people out there with more applicable experience who don't have jobs and who will be fighting for the same jobs I'll be fighting for.  The doubt spiral needs to stop because it's led to immobilization and too much pixel farming, but I'm stuck today.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

An Odd Brief Moment of Honesty

The Writing Center I work in has meetings every two weeks where we either talk over recent tutoring issues/problem cases/what do I do in X situation or we meet with the head of some group or other on campus to talk over writing issues on campus.  The meetings consist of the Writing Center director (a faculty member in my department) and the tutors, all of whom are Ph.D. candidate-level grad students.

This past Thursday, we had two people from the Career Center come in to talk to us.  One of them came in for the reason we were expecting - so that we could talk over expectations for med school/law school/grad school personal statements.  We see a ton of them in the Writing Center, so it was good to have someone else's version of what it is that each type of school is generally looking for.  Good times and all.  Productive. As an aside, I was amused when she said that successful law school personal statements tend to sound arrogant.

The other person from the Career Center was the Grad Student Career Counselor (the same one I met with a few weeks ago).  She came specifically and only to talk to us about things that people can do with English Ph.D.s.  We weren't expecting her at all - she was someone the director invited along without warning any of us. 

If it hasn't come across by now (given my reasons for being mostly anonymous in this blog), being in the humanities in the academy and acknowledging that you're leaving is often a recipe for disaster.  Typical reactions include being shunned, being called a failure, being told one isn't sufficiently committed to one's scholarship and so on.  I've heard of people saying they were leaving academics and being told that their committee didn't see the point in letting them finish the degree.  I think it's the combined effect of working in a little understood field, one which is desperately difficult to get into, and one which requires pretty much complete dedication to in order to survive.  Add to this the fact that the people who make the decisions on who stays in and who ends up being forced out are themselves professors of the same subjects who themselves have had to maintain decades of complete dedication in order to survive, and you end up with a situation wherein the casual mention of "I think I'm going to do something else" can feel, to those staying in, like a personal attack.  Hence the repercussions I've already mentioned.

Anyway.  Having someone walk into the Writing Center and point out to a group of 15 English Ph.D. candidates - in front of a faculty member - that most of us will end up doing something not-English-professor with our lives was dead shocking.  It felt like the first honest career discussion I've ever had in that building, the first time anyone has allowed us to acknowledge openly that the job market sucks giant donkey balls and that getting out is not only something that we need to consider as a Plan B, but quite possibly something we should consider as a Plan A.

I'm writing about it here because it felt like a breakthrough, at least for my department.  If we're allowed to discuss so-called "alternative" careers openly, maybe it will help cut the stigma that not going into academics is synonymous with failure.  Given the fact that only 1/5 of graduating Ph.D.s will actually get the pipe dream tenure track job within five years of graduation, it seems like the ONLY intelligent thing to do is to have one (or two, or three) backup plan(s) ready to launch.  It's good to know that at least somewhere in my institution, this is something we can finally discuss.

I'm asking the Writing Center director to be one of my references when I'm in tomorrow.  I've worked with him for seven years now so he knows me well, and I know now that I can ask him to be a non-academic reference without worrying that asking him could have some kind of blowback for me with my dissertation committee.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Fuck you, this week

Basically, I spent the week walking into things and maybe gave myself a really mild concussion.  Because I sat down wrong in my car - like I misjudged how far down I had to sit in order not to hit my head on the roof of the car.  That I've had for seven years.  I'm hoping the headaches stop at some point over the next day or two.

I'd also like the pollen to dry up and die, but a) I'm hardly alone in that sentiment and b) that would be bad for the plants.  I'm dealing.

The worst thing was losing my computer for two days because I rebooted it and it didn't recognize my user profile.  This happened to me last October.  I brought it to the campus helpdesk when it happened last time and they had it back to me the next day.  I brought it there this time and they ignored it for two days before telling me that they'd booted it up and didn't know what my problem was BECAUSE THE STUPID THING HAD FIXED ITSELF.  I think it just wanted a break or something.  Or it's begging me to use any operating system that isn't Windows Vista.

Anyway, we did have a good meeting in the Writing Center yesterday that I need to scribble about, but I'll do that tomorrow in its own separate post.  At this point it's 1am and I need bedtimes.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

15 Minute Identity Crisis

Why I can't review music:  I'd go off on a thing about how awesome this Radiohead (sort of? mini? ghost?) album is, and I'd end up sounding either like a pretentious hipster wanker or a wannabe pretentious hipster wanker (honestly not sure which is worse), so I'll not go there.  I could never get the hipster thing down anyway, even when I tried in college.  I'm sure I'm probably pretentious enough, but I'm not cool.

I'm feeling like the blog needs a(nother) new name.  I forget what it was first, and then it changed to "Interior Monologues" since that's what this all is, and then I changed it to "Suck it, Monkeys" as that's my general feeling toward the Ivory Tower and the denisens therein (not all, not even most of them - the thought is pretty much only aimed at the jerks who haven't let Brownie know one way or the other on anything in the employment realm, with a side hit to myself and my self-defeating ego-hampering maneuvers).  I've considered a few new names, but "Girl in Midst of Identity Crisis Babbles Occasionally" seems a bit unfocused (perhaps like the blog overall), "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:  My Thoughts on Things and Stuff" sounds even less focused, and anything else I've come up with is verging more into "16 year old emoteen" than I'd like.  "Nunkin's Non-Sequiturs" seems like it's trying too hard.  I'm not sure I'm clever enough for that.

Having written all that, I've spent five minutes trying to come up with something to say that doesn't involve berating myself for my lack of recent accomplishments.  I've ended up staring at my desk.  On top of my desk is a small notebook I carry around so that I can jot ideas down when they occur to me, the pen that I keep stuck in the spirals of said notebook, a coffee mug, two bottles and untold imps of BPAL, a black cardboard tube with silver endcaps containing a bottle of CBIHP, the financial aid paperwork I keep forgetting to fill out (and which needs to happen before I go to bed), a towel, some carpet cleaner, approximately 20 cds, some old beer bottles with neat labels, my checkbook, some lotion, a New Moon chocolate candy thing that Brownie bought me last November as a joke, a box of cards for thank you notes and whatnot, three stacks of books, a mug full of pens and binder clips, and the manuscript I'm theoretically writing my dissertation on.  Underneath and next to my desk, it looks like a library has had severe digestive problems: a two foot high stack of assorted papers and approximately 50 books that I'm ignoring because they all have titles like Elites, Crises, and the Origins of Regimes

I think my desk is too big.  I'm planning on selling it when we finally move (whenever and wherever) and downsizing to something manageable.  The large desk feels like my "go-getter grad student" phase, like it's for big and important tasks.  At this point, I'd be happier with a small desk, one close against the wall, with enough room for my laptop, a notebook and a beer, maybe some better speakers.  And I'd like a comfortable desk chair to go with it.

Were there a way to end this with a song, it'd be Radiohead's "Go Slowly," which has been playing on repeat for about a half hour now.  I could listen to Thom Yorke sing forever.

Monday, March 29, 2010

On Radiohead and other joys of life

I am boggled by the fact that there has been an In Rainbows Disk 2 for months, MONTHS, now, yet I somehow was unaware of this until about an hour ago.  Having discovered the existence of such an album, I now own it (because Ceiling Cat forbid there be Radiohead that I don't own).  "Go Slowly" and "Last Flowers" are bleeding excellent songs and my initial favorites.  This being Radiohead, my favorite songs on the album a month from now will probably be ones I'm barely paying attention to now.

I am reaching incoherency after a whopping four hours of sleep after last nights' marathon grading session.  I love the marathon grading sessions because it gets the pain over in one swell foop, but I'm not a fan of my exhaustion level right now.  That said, I don't know that I would have gotten to bed any earlier than 2am anyway simply because my sleep schedule had turned to "weekend," meaning I didn't get out of bed until close to 11 yesterday.

The oddest thing about grading yesterday was that I ended up needing a notebook out for myself so that I could jot down thoughts for noveling.  I typically end up with a notebook nearby so I can scribble notes on what sorts of writing instruction I think the class may benefit from.  I'm not used to reading potato papers and feeling any sort of inspired thought about my own work - the usual thought process is more along the lines of "____________ OMGWTFBBQ DID YOU SRSLY WRITE THAT ______________________________ I'm bored" and etc.  Weirdly, last night, despite the plenty of "WTF" thoughts, I finally managed to figure out how to get the fight between the main characters going - the bit that was giving me problems a few days ago.  So YAY.

I can't wait to have a draft of the whole novel done so that I can completely rip it apart and reorganize it.

Anyway, I'm back to "I need to write my stupid resume for to attempt to find some sort of gainful employment."  And consequently back to "I should probably take some Adderall" (which, despite my last post, I still haven't done).  And back to feeling guilty about my distinct lack of progress in dissertationland, compounded by having run into Hosebeast Advisor in the hall today and her being completely friendly.  So I feel like I'm being lazy and wasting time, which basically means I'm wasting my life. 

Barista friend from a few posts ago bought herself a plane ticket yesterday so she can move to LA at the end of the semester to be with a guy she met and spent about a week with over Spring Break.  She's over the moon happy.  I think it's... well, I think it's awesome.  I feel like I should be thinking that it's not a smart idea, that she shouldn't be tossing grad school in the basket just to try out a relationship etc etc etc., but I can't make myself do it.  She's looking for jobs and I have no idea if she's planning on finishing her MA.  And I think it's awesome because she's doing something instead of locking herself up in the academy.  I think I'm kinda jealous.  I'm not jealous that she's running of to pursue a relationship - I think I'm jealous because she's doing something wild and wonderful and crazy that sounds a lot more like living than my 7 years of doing time in the academy.  And I wish that when I'd found it stifling, I'd done something wild and crazy too.

None of that is fueling my desire to work on my dissertation.  It does, however, fuel my desire to novel more.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Back to the Adderall

Job-type update:
I now have a profile on linkedin.  It has, well, very little information on it.  Why?  Because I still haven't finished my resume.  It's... extremely strange trying to figure out how to word things in a way that "sells" me as a good job candidate (or indeed good at much of anything).  I'm also not sure if I should be putting as my field the one which currently employs me or the one in which I think I might be tolerably happy in (i.e., I think I'm giving HR a try).  Also not sure whether I should be listing my zipcode as the one in which I'm currently stuck or the one in which I'd prefer to be living in, say, 3 months.  I'm open to suggestions. 

Frustration update:
I think the resume will be finished with Adderall.  I'm too scattered lately for my brain to function correctly.  I'm frustrated to all hell with my class (seriously, potatoes, it's Twilight - please drum up some interest to pick it apart or bash it or whatever - even bashing it would bring up some kind of conversation that I could work with!), I'm behind on grading papers (it's been a week and a half now - I usually never take this long), I still have to finish that wretched book to finish teaching on Friday, I need to get my financial aid stuff taken care of for the summer/fall as I will still technically be a student, I REALLY need to finish a draft of the resume so I can get it out there, I need to help plan one of my best friend's bridal showers (I'm matron of honor and bride's mom is refusing to help with anything - long story, not mine), and I'm still trying to get some writing done on the novel. 

Unfortunately, I've been feeling so pulled around that very little actually got done today (um, this week so far).  Class was awful (I feel like I'm not doing a great job with the text, but I also feel like the fact that one person in the room actually did their homework (i.e., play on the google to find out some idea of the real extent of Twifandom) had something to do with it as well).  (I'm apparently parenthetical happy right now - sorry for that!)  I didn't get much sleep last night either.  The upshot is that I got home, ate something, complained at mah forum ladies about my stupid morning, pixel farmed, and then stared at umpteen word docs to no effect whatsoever while listening to Doves' "Some Cities" album on repeat.  I can't keep doing this, so it's back to the Adderall after the funeral.

Family/Life update:
We spent the evening at Brownie's uncle's house with his family, mostly listening to aunts and uncles and cousins compare eulogies for Brownie's grandpop's memorial.  The family writ large has been inundated with food this week - apparently the main reason we all got together was that there was suddenly enough food from neighbors and other family members that help was rather desperately needed to eat some of it.  I had no idea people still brought food to neighbors after a death in the family.  I think it's awesome that it really does happen.  The memorial service is tomorrow morning.  Brownie's mom threatened us with promised that we'd be the recipients of any fruit baskets she gets, but that she's keeping all the chocolate (her preferred stress reliever).  She planned pretty much the entire service, so I'd say she earned it.  Brownie and I are taking Nutella cookies to her on Saturday.

I should be sleepy by this point.  I'm exhausted, but I always seem to get something of a second wind along about 9:30/10.  I *hate* the timing on this, because I need to go to sleep.  The service tomorrow is at 8:30 way the hell at the other end of town.  I love when I can use this time for noveling, but that's been like pulling teeth out of a pissed off yak the past couple of days.  There's a fight that needs to happen that the characters don't seem ready to have yet, but that I need them to have within the next 12 or so hours of plot.  I can't figure out if I'm forcing the fight when the characters aren't quite ready for it or if I just haven't hit the right head space to write it.  I just can't hear it yet.  I can hear the aftermath loud and clear, but not the fight.  I'll have to backburner it for a few days and see what my brain dreams up while I'm working on other things.  I don't exactly have time to novel at the moment anyway, sadly.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

some non-sequiturs on life, death and writer's block

Lots of thoughts swirling in my head right now.

Brownie's grandfather finally died late Saturday evening after having a massive stroke on Thursday night.  There's a memorial service on Thursday morning.  I feel funny calling it a funeral or anything else because, although knowing he'll be missed, Brownie and family seem to be having a difficult time going through the "mourning" process.  There isn't really anything to "mourn" - he suffered a catastrophic stroke a few minutes after bowling a turkey.  He was mentally and physically in very good form, and lived a long and very happy life.  Like if anything it's actually something to aspire to.  Live happy and die on a high note.

Meanwhile, the death and surrounding activities have come with the sort of family reunion that these sorts of things tend to have.  Brownie's sister and brother-in-law just got into town today.  She's six months pregnant with their first kid (whom they've nicknamed something utterly unspellable)(and I'm not a bad speller!).  We had dinner at Brownie's parents with them.  The dinner was punctuated by Brownie's sister grabbing the hand of the nearest person and clutching it to her belly, hoping we'd be able to feel the babbybump kick.  It was really fun.

And somewhere in the back of my head I get this horrible thought about "wow, circle of life, how very twee is all of this."  Yes.  It's twee.  Life is actually like that sometimes.  So I'll leave that in its twee-ness and move on to this morning.

One of my sacred rules of life is that I will always treat and tip well the person who serves me a drink, be it caffeinated or alcoholic.  (Obviously the same thing goes for waiters and anyone else in a service type of job - the rule in my head specifically refers to drink-related people as they're who I see most often.)  So maybe a month and a half ago, I had gone in on a Monday morning for my usual coffee run before heading off to tutor.  The barista, whom I'd never met before, was playing Bloc Party on the stereo.  I commented on it, she commented that she didn't know a lot of people who knew the band, we got into a discussion about music we liked to run to (Bloc Party being high on my list).  The next time she was working when I wandered in, we established that we're both in grad school (albeit different disciplines).  Since then we've been really chatty every time I've gone in that she's been working.

Anyway.  I was working in the Writing Center this morning, and she turned out to be my appointment for the first half hour.  The appointment ended up going an hour and a half.  It turns out she's ADHD as well and has a bunch of the same sorts of organizational difficulties I struggle with.  I ended up sharing every writing strategy I could think of as we worked through sections of her paper, things that have worked for me that might help her as well; we compared Adderall experiences, work habits and patterns.  The writing stuff is what interests me most:  I'm hoping I run into her soon so I can hear if anything that works for me also works for her.  That said, I'm going to throw the ideas out here in the hopes that, as they've helped me, maybe they'll help another ADHD-type brain.

Without further ado (and possibly to be reposted, later, with additions and without the huge run up):
- BRAINSTORM.  Start by mapping/webbing.  This is something that a lot of us (in the 80's, anyway) were trained to do in elementary school.  Take a piece of paper.  Write your main topic in the middle and draw a circle around it.  Then write one of the large supporting ideas that you'll be discussing somewhere else on the paper - say in the upper right corner.  Draw a slightly smaller circle around that.  Connect the circles.  As you have large supporting ideas, do the same with those.  Supporting ideas need support too, so as you come up with smaller supporting ideas, figure out which of the larger supporting ideas the smaller ones fit with, and place the smaller ideas in groupings around the larger ones.  If a smaller idea fits more than one of the larger ideas, connect it with more lines, etc.  What you'll end up with is a series of clusters that are linked together.  You can then transform the giant clusters into a workable outline, and write a paper from there.
              For an ADHD brain, the beauty of the mapping/webbing style of brainstorming is that it allows the flow of thoughts to come in random, scattered, oddly-connected ways rather than in linear ways.  I know lots of people who can think linearly, form linear arguments easily, who see things in very cause/effect-type ways.  Outlining tends to work well for them.  However, for those of us for whom linear thinking is difficult at best and an utterly foreign concept at worst, mapping allows space to write the thoughts wherever they seem to belong whenever they come up (so that there needs be no attempt to force thoughts to stay only on one of the supporting ideas at any given time), and allows, through drawing lines to connect the ideas, a way to "see" the connections more strongly. 
- When writing at a computer and stuck with writer's block, take out some paper and a pen (or crayon or pencil or whatever) and start writing by hand.  Write anything until you get going on a new idea.  N. Katherine Hayles  and Sherri Turkle (among others, but these are the two who come to mind right now) have both argued that the technology we work with affects the way we think.  I've found that, for me at least, this is very much true.  This means that I can, to a degree, manipulate how I think through the material I work with.  Through writing ideas out by hand, I'm forced to slow down significantly from the speed that I'm typing at - this seems to force my thoughts to slow down and settle a bit more than they do on the computer.  I wonder if there's more to it - if the way I'm working with my hands somehow changes my thinking, or if the fact that I can doodle in the margins when I'm using a pen - something that obviously doesn't happen with computers - somehow changes what my brain is doing.  I doodle a lot when I'm writing by hand.  Computers are great because they allow for thoughts to be recorded extremely quickly (and edited just as fast), but they don't allow for some of the right brain-type action that can come out when doodling.  Anyway, if you're at a computer and stuck, take out the pen.
- (This one more super-specifically for ADHD than for any other type of brain)  Plan on a rough draft that is roughly half the length of what you actually need to churn out.  One of the problems that I've seen with many ADHD writers is the tendency to skim along the surface of thinking rather than explain the depth of each thought.  Instructors get really frustrated with this (understandably, I think, coming from the side of the student who has turned in very "surface-y" work and from the instructor who has received it from her students).  The problem with ADHD writing isn't that the depth of thinking isn't there (though this is often what's perceived): the problem is that the depth of thinking often isn't explained fully (if at all).  When pressed on a point, the writer can nearly always explain layers upon layers of thought that went into the final point (the final point being the only part that actually made it into the paper).  When asked why all that thinking wasn't put into the paper as well, the answer is often that either the thought process itself didn't seem all that important or that the connections seemed so obvious to the writer that writer assumed everyone else would see them as well.
              This is why I suggest starting with a rough draft that is only half of the required length.  Once the main ideas have been spelled out, stop writing and start asking questions (or better yet, find someone else to ask the questions - writing is best as a group effort).  The goal is to resemble an eager, why-asking five-year-old as much as possible.  Five-year-olds, when asking "why" about ANYTHING, are inexhaustible: they're trying to understand everything as fully as they possibly can.  In adopting this tactic, the ultimate point is to make sure that the thinking behind every point, every conclusion, every sentence is explained as fully as possible.  (This is another reason why mapping is so helpful - it gives a diagram of the thoughts that went into each major point so that nothing is left out.)  Explain EVERYTHING, even the seemingly most unimportant points and digressions.  Then and only then, go back and edit out the truly extraneous sentences. 

That's the short version of paper writing for the ADHD brain.  Like I said, I'll probably repost and expand it later (like, say, when it's not 1am, I haven't been up since 7, am on more than 4 hours of sleep...) - I have no idea how clear any of that is at this point because I can't see straight for yawning.  But I'll work with it soon - I'm not the only person with ADHD who's found themselves needing to write a paper.  If this has worked for me, then it will work for someone else.

I'd try to come up with some bizarro way to link back to the beginning of this post, to bring it all full circle (again?), but it isn't happening naturally and I don't feel like forcing it.  This should be two posts, really.  However, I've typed it all out and I'm not changing it now.  Enjoy!
(Really, Pandora?  You're advertising CLUB MED to me in between songs? Heh.)

Friday, March 19, 2010

Life

I'm sitting on the futon in my office with a warm orange purring ball of kittyfur curled up next to me and making my left leg warm.  This is inherently soothing.  Purring cats are the best thing on the planet.

As mentioned previously (not that this is in any way escapable outside of the realm of this blog), it's March Madness pt. 1 this week.  And I love March Madness.  And my team played tonight.  Brownie and I spent way too much time coming up with game plans (probably because talking about anything else - aka "where the hell will we get paychecks after May 30th - is too depressing).  We were about halfway into the first half, excited and squealing and cheering, when Brownie got a call from his mother: his grandfather just had a stroke and is now in the hospital.  He'll be there at least overnight, and we have no idea what all is going on.

Poof: the oxygen was sucked out of the room, and we spent the rest of the first half pretty much silent.  Brownie finally managed to get ahold of his mom again during half time.  We found pretty much nothing else - we have no idea what condition he's in exactly, or where they think the stroke hit, or if he's in danger or what.  Brownie then watched about 3 minutes of the second half, cheered some, and packed it off to bed.  His mom called right as the game ended to find out the final score.  I think she and Brownie's dad were leaving the hospital then.  I think. 

Right after we heard, we both settled into the really helpless feeling of knowing that someone's life is in danger, that there's nothing we can do, and that a lot of people are really upset because of this but there isn't really any way to help.  Add to that Brownie dealing with the possibility of losing his grandfather.  He clammed up and didn't really want to talk (he was getting really sleepy), so I don't know exactly what he's feeing.

I'm torn, really.  I started initially to feel guilty for being able to enjoy the game again after halftime, after we'd gotten just enough news to know that his grandfather hadn't died on the way to the hospital.  I don't know if I need to feel guilty though.  I don't really think so.  The thinking goes like this:  if it had been necessary or if us being there would have been able to help anything in some small way, we would have quit the game, hopped in the car, and joined his parents and aunt and uncle at the hospital.  And that would have been more than fine.  However, we were told to stay home and enjoy the rest of the game.  Brownie was tired and went to bed and eventually I really did enjoy the rest of the game.  But I wondered: should I?  or should I worry? or fret? or... what?  There really is nothing I can do for anyone.  Therefore, it's better that I enjoyed the rest of the game, rather than that I sat and worried and did nothing, isn't it?

Brownie's family (very Catholic) is fond of teasing me (Episcopalian) that I have no sense of Catholic guilt whatsoever.  I'm typically very proud of this.  I can't, however, figure out if what I'm feeling right now is a type of guilt, that I'm having fun when something awful has happened to a family member, or if I did the smarter thing by managing to let go of some of the worry once I knew I couldn't do anything, couldn't help anyone, wouldn't be sitting by someone in a hospital waiting room all night.

Is there a script out there for this sort of thing?  Something out there somewhere that I missed?

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March Beer Week, 2010

Mid-March comes, as it does every year, with the promise of a week filled with MOAR BEER. To illustrate, here are the next few days:

Tomorrow is St. Patty's, obviously (we're having corned beef and colcannon for dinner tonight - squee!).  Brownie's family is mega-Irish (and mega-Italian:  hello East Coast!).  We're meeting a bunch of his aunts and uncles for drinkie bits at happy hour.  I will play my usual St. Patty's  "how many total strangers offer to buy me a drink because I have curly red hair" game.  For some reason, despite my total lack of Irish ancestry, the hair is sufficient for free drinks (or would be if I were willing to take any of said strangers up on the drinks, which I am not).

Thursday marks the beginning of March Madness.  Thursday is also the day of "the game wherein my undergrad's team mops the floor with my grad school's team."  I cannot wait.  I've been getting a bunch of questions from people who don't know me all that well, but do know me well enough to know which schools I'm referring to.  They always have questions about which team I'll be rooting for.  I figure I'll just answer here (despite the fact that pretty much no one who knows me IRL knows about this blog*):  no one in grad school would EVER root for their grad school over their undergrad.  It's simple: undergrad is fun; grad school is soul-sucking hell.  Undergrad wins, every time.

Friday, Brownie's undergrad team has its first tourney game.
Saturday and Sunday, MOAR BASKETBALL.

In between all of this, I really do need to start grading papers so that I don't find myself grading until 3am Sunday night.  I try to get papers back to my students within a week.  Managing to do so reminds me that I actually am capable of getting things done, which gives me a mild self-esteem boost.  I can go for as many of those as possible. 

On the job front, I contacted an aunt of mine who works in HR at large corporation to see if I could bounce resume questions/drafts off of her.  I'm planning on working on an initial draft Wednesday pre-St. Patty's beers and Thursday pre-game.  Here's hoping the research I've been doing pays off.  I'll be posting general thoughts about the format I'm using and the whys and wherefores as the draft gets going.

Side note: while typing this, I've been noticing that my keyboard doesn't seem to be registering every key that I type - if there are words that are missing letters and I managed not to notice/correct it before publishing, my apologies.

*quickie reason for the anonymity at the moment:  the anonymity is nothing I really want to keep up forever.  However, until the degree is completed and I've got a real, non-academic job, I need to keep it relatively anonymous.  The academy is none-too-friendly about people announcing that they'll be leaving its ranks, and I want to avoid any possible blowback from the actual academics I know about my decision to leave until after I have gainful employment: leaving academics is tantamount to burning bridges big time.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Breathing in Brooklyn

Brownie and I "ceberated" Spring Break yesterday by going to NYC to spend money stimulate the economy play.  Along the way, we saw Hugh Jackman heading out of a Gap near Union Square.  The man, he is tall.  And wet.  Near soaking, actually, as were we all, because the Northeast got hit with a Nor'easter this weekend and it was sheeting rain all damn day.  Re: Mr. Jackman, no I gawk openly, chase him down the street, attempt to get a picture or anything else.  I did do a double-take.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip was easily a trip to the CB I Hate Perfume gallery in Brooklyn, the website of which I've linked to in the blog title.  The gallery is fucking awesome.  It's a medium-sized room with white, cubbyhole type shelves on two sides of the wall (this is where the testers are displayed), a table, some random stools, and then a few steps up to the back area where they mix all the scents.  There are several lines of perfumes which tend toward the natural/outdoorsy side of scents, as well as several series of single-note accords.

Basically, it's a perfume heaven.  The other perfume heaven, of course, is Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL).  The difference, for those who know neither or for those only familiar with one, is fairly simple.  BPAL works to create scents that are olfactory interpretations of literature, artwork, myths, experiences - whatever has captured Beth's attention.  The clearest example of this is the Salon series, where a work of art has been "translated" into a scent interpretation - certain notes in the perfume may have been chosen because they're represented in the painting (i.e., a painting with sunflowers will have sunflower in the scent oil, etc), other notes may have been chosen because they match the color of the painting (i.e., a form of synesthesia: the way we often think of the color orange when we smell the fruit of the same name).  The blends then create a sort of mood or feeling.  Example: Falling Leaf Moon gives off a mood that is reminiscent of wandering through a forest in New England in late October - melancholy, damp, woodsy, and the idea of a pumpkin pie floating in the background.

CB I Hate Perfume, conversely, can best be described by the accords.  The accords aren't interpretations.  They flat-out smell exactly like what the label claims.  If the label says Mango, it smells like a mango.  If the label says Clean Baby Butt, it smells like baby powder.  Smokehouse smells exactly like a barbeque joint.  The perfumes are interpretations of ideas or experiences, much like BPAL, but whereas BPAL will create a scent that gets across the mood, CBIHP will create a scent that smells like the actual moment.  To contrast with BPAL Falling Leaf Moon above, CBIHP has a scent called M3: November which smells exactly like you've been dropped into a forest in the late fall.  It isn't a mood, it's an experience.

That said, the differences are obviously minor, but distinct.  Another small difference:  CBIHP smells 'cleaner' to me, BPAL 'richer,' if that makes any sense.

Brownie and I wandered in at about 1:15 and were met almost at the door by one of the employees, a British-sounding chap named Russell.  We were allowed to dump dripping umbrellas in an umbrella stand, told to drop our coats on one of the stools, and then given a brief tour of what was where: perfume series to the left (with water perfumes available to spray at will; CBIHP doesn't use alcohol in their perfume) and accords to the right.  We were then told that any accords we wanted would be made to order, told if we wanted Cradle of Light to order about 25 minutes before we wanted to leave so that they'd have time to make the water perfume up (quite expensive, that one!), and were then left alone to sniff, sniff, sniff and sniff some more.

They have damn near everything.  There were only two scents I could think of that I would have loved that they didn't have: sunflower accord and neroli accord.  Everything else, however, was there.  And I mean everything, from wet concrete accord (smells like rainy sidewalks) to roast beef accord (beefy and lightly herbed - made me hungry!) to an accord jokingly called "You know what this is..." which was, I am not kidding, Play-Doh.  Honest to FSM, Play-Doh.

The thing that really blows my mind, however, is the water line of accords.  I've seen and tried lots of aquatic perfumes, but I have never once smelled one that smells like real rain.  With BPAL, I always feel like the aquatics are something that lend more to the mood of a scent rather than a description of "this here smells like an actual ocean."  So when I picked up CBIHP's Rain Storm accord, the last thing I was expecting it to smell like was a thunderstorm.  BUT IT DOES.  It smells like actual, real, true, falling from the sky RAIN (which I had ample opportunity to verify, given, as I mentioned earlier, the city was being drenched in the stuff).

I ended up with two perfumes and three accords:
- Fig Leaf / Revelation perfume
- I am a Dandelion perfume
- Rain Storm accord
- Wet Lawn accord
- Pimms Cup accord (a quick google later tells me that Pimms Cup is a gin-based citrus liquor, which I'm now mad to try)

A lovely time was had by all (except my wallet, of course).  I'm thrilled with my scents and will review them in later posts.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Commencing the job search hardcore

This post is likely to be some sort of linkspam type deal, put together from the discoveries I've made this afternoon while researching how the hell to get myself out of academia and into some sort of suitable job.

Questions that I've been wrestling with as I've been researching:
- how do I turn my CV into a resume that is attractive outside of academics?***
- how do I translate 7 years of working my ass off in graduate school into a set of skills that makes sense to the outside world?**
- how do I locate jobs to apply for that I'm not simultaneously over- and under-qualified for?*

* fuck me on this. I'm still trying to figure this out. One of the main purposes of going to my university's career center was to figure this out. The career center gave me some books and sent me on my way. This was NOT HELPFUL. So I'm relying on my researching skills to figure this out.
** I'm researching buzzwords. 6 years as a writing tutor: "good at coaching in one-on-one situations" etc
*** lots of revising, I assume


Things I have discovered:
http://www.leavingacademia.com/ - so far, the most helpful site I've come across in terms of being honest, cheerful enough that I don't regret pursuing the Ph.D. every moment of the day, and realistic enough to say 'yes, you will need to network, etc.'

http://www.beyondacademe.com/ - more of the world of "get me out of here"

#alt-ac : the current twitter hashtag going around for alternate-academic (read: non-professorial careers in the ivory tower) (I'm not as of yet on twitter, but I think I may have to change this)

www.phds.org/jobs/nonacademic-careers/nonacademic-employers-that-hire-phds/ - fairly self-explanatory - a list of employers who actually think that the training that goes along with a Ph.D. has some sort of usefulness to the outside world

listservs - wrk4us is a prime example (which I think I'll be joining)

I also read that it would be worthwhile to join theladders.com - that site that prides itself on the $100K job listings. The point of this isn't to start grubbing for money - apparently the site has some spectacular career advice. I'll be joining up to see what all the hype is about. I'll report back here if there's anything worthwhile.


Anyway, that's what my doings of the day have looked like, despite my sunny and happy "Spring Break is for lovers" post of yesterday. I was hit with a blinding 2am panic attack that I have 5 more paychecks coming before I'll be thrown out to the wolves. Ergo today=work on that.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Spring Break: A Panegyric

This being the last of my years in academe, this is the last of my Spring Breaks. Younger me would think that I should be marking the occasion by going on a trip. Grad school paychecks being what they are, however, there won't be any major trip.

Honestly, though, I'm okay with that, or perhaps even sort of happy. This break is going beautifully (albeit way too quickly, as per usual). I'm working out every morning (still doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Days of Hell dvd, which is toning me up something fierce), I'm ACTUALLY EATING BREAKFAST (this is a new and very unusual thing), I've been crocheting (the stupid scarf I've been working on since January is finally almost done), and I've been noveling again (FINALLY). I've gotten a couple thousand words so far this week. Nowhere near my November pace, but it's good, and I'm back to the characters having conversations I wasn't planning on them having and having those conversations drift off in directions I hadn't seen before they happened and I've re-planned out how the novel will begin and things are generally going swimmingly. It feels really good to be writing again. It's also really nice to have the week to write and think and write some more without the nagging constant guilty feeling that I'm supposed to be focusing on my teaching and trying to force some work on the damned dissertation and work on the job hunt and everything else.

Even better: it's been in the 50s all week. After the snowiest winter I have ever lived through, the concept of the 50s is near-tropical. We even saw the sun here for a couple of days!

Tonight, Brownie and I are going to attempt to make duck. Why? We have the time, and I have some Wegmans gift certificates from my birthday to play with. On Saturday, we're taking our tax returns on a day trip to NYC. We're hitting the Strand for books (I refuse on principle to look for dissertation books), and I will finally (!) get to go play at the CB I Hate Perfume gallery. I mean, Cloudburst Accord. Wet Lawn Accord. And then we're going to go get some food somewhere. And maybe hit the Brooklyn Brewery while we're in Brooklyn.

What I'm saying is that I'm happier right now than I have been in months, if not longer. I think it's because I've given myself permission to spend a week not in academics, not surrounded by thoughts of the Ivory Tower, not wallowing in the overabundance of guilt and feelings of abject failure that I associate with my dissertation. I'm just taking care of myself and working on things that I find interesting and fun and productive. It feels awesome.

I know that when I get out of academics in May, I will be surrounded by the stress of a job hunt and then (preferably soon!) the stress of a brand new job in a brand new field and that leaving the academy does not mean that I'm leaving stress behind forever. To get this week, however, to devote to putting my emotional health back into some semblance of tolerability has been an absolute godsend.

So fare thee well, Spring Break. You've been good to me and I will miss you when you're gone. And I will probably try my level best to take a week off when possible in the Spring, just to see if I can recreate the sense of calm I feel right now.

Friday, March 5, 2010

events and memories

I went to the career counselor yesterday...
... and I'd rather talk about something else right now. To sum up: I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know except that my institution of some sort of learning has a database of companies to play with. Also that there's a "career library" which I'm going to raid tomorrow. Books along the lines of "what do I do with my BA in English," to borrow a line from Avenue Q.

Anyway. I could write more about it, but there's no point and my brain is being eaten alive by Baudrillard, which I'd much rather talk about.

This scenario occurred in two parts:
1) I decided that, for writing purposes, it would be an intelligent idea to have a little mini notebook with me to scribble ideas down.
2) I spent my lunchtime before the career counseling appointment reading Baudrillard, flipping through the The Illusion of the End after having taught an excerpt of it recently.

The essential thing here is that I tripped over a few lines that made me pause, ponder, rip out the notebook, scribble illegibly for a while, relate everything back to the novel-in-progress (the general setting and characters of which have formed the backbone of most of my daydreams for months now - i.e., how would MC deal with these thoughts? what about main romantic interest? friends? etc.), and then just mulled everything over in my brain for a while. At this point it's probably far too late, and I too tired, to get through everything I'm thinking; I may very well revisit this all later. However, I thought I'd get the quotes out there anyway. These are from Jean Baudrillard's The Illusion of the End, trans. Christopher Butler (Stanford UP) 1994.

"If there is something distinctive about an event - about what constitutes an event and thus has historical value - it is the fact that it is irreversible, that there is always something in it which exceeds meaning and interpretation." (13)

Baudrillard here is talking about events in the sense of global history (in the midst of a discussion wherein he asserts that we've lost history altogether). I find the quote to have tremendous meaning on an individual level, however, and have been dealing with it on that plane. I suppose that when it comes to memories, there are narratives and then there are events. Narratives would be the bits and pieces that are understood, readily placed within a larger overall arc of our lives, bits and pieces that accumulate like so much flotsam but which can be generally comprehended as continuous or flowing in some sort of storyline. Events, then, would rare, and probably often (I'd like to think not always) traumatic: those moments that defy interpretation, that can't be fit into an overall life narrative, that are just too BIG. I haven't figured out exactly what I think would qualify as an event in a person's life - I suppose that would be left to the individual (though I may have more thoughts when I'm more conscious).

"We have reached the point of seeking in water a memory without traces, of hoping... that something still remains when even molecular traces have disappeared." (31)

I'm not entirely sure why I latched onto this so strongly. Molecules in the body entirely replaced every seven years, so that on a molecular level we are entirely renewed, replaced, changed. I'm struck by the idea that I'm filled with memories of which my body has no molecular memory, that people who touched me, situations that affected me and that still live with me in my mind are, to the molecules of my body, utterly foreign. Seven years and the molecular traces vanish.

The seven year molecular replacement is an interesting way to conceive of time, to mark the distance from an event. If most memories are bits of narrative which flow through our minds, would the impact of an event be worn down over time as tiny, insignificant pieces shifted themselves bit by bit outside of our consciousness, or would an event stay true despite that shifting? Would an event be the one memory that time couldn't affect, that no amount of living could erase?