Some random links

I found that blog (I love people who don't update their blog rolls. Seriously): http://professorme.blogspot.com/

A big thank you to the Grumpies for introducing the Hull family to Gunnerkrigg! Sir John stayed up till the small hours were no longer so very small, reading it. I'm still going through the archives very, very slowly because I don't want it ever to end.

Leonard Cohen is bringing out a new album. And he's releasing it on vinyl as well as on CD. I'm not actually such a geek as to get the vinyl version, but I love that there are such geeks and that Leonard is catering to them.

Someone left a link to Apartment Therapy in the comments to New Kid's decorating post. Cool stuff. Only I think you'd really have to get rid of a lot of stuff before their ideas would work, and that is precisely the hard part. I also read with great interest the post on how to pack lightly for a trip, as I always enjoy such advice, but, again as usual, I found that I actually pack lighter than the advisors do. That is, when I'm flying I pack that lightly. Driving to Kalamazoo? You'd think I was moving in.

What the hell: celebrate!

Looking at some other blogs tonight, it seems that 2011 is getting mixed reviews. I don't have any special attitude toward it: certainly not one of my worst years, but it doesn't stand out particularly either. It was a year. I've had almost 50 of them. At this point, I'm happy just to be here and healthy.

But hey, it's New Year's Eve, and one of my basic principles is that Any Excuse Is A Good Excuse for champagne. Although we're staying in tonight (working crossword puzzles, watching some B5, the usual sort of quiet happy Hull evening) and will quite likely be in bed before midnight, we toasted the New Year as it came into London and I'm still slightly tipsy. Love the lovely champers.

So happy New Year to both regular readers and anyone who just stops by! I hope 2012 brings you good things, or at least Sucks Less (hat tip to What Now). Hope for the future is always worth celebrating. Enjoy the real or virtual bubbly, and come back soon for the next WWW post.

Weak, grouchy, grinchy, whiny SAD post

I'm not sure what sort of strength it is to suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Maybe the other side is the energy I have from April to October, or that I would be a superhero if I could just live in the right climate. But at the moment, that last post is sitting here mocking me, so I'm going to try to exorcise the grumps with a new entry.

The good news: the Solstice has passed. Tomorrow will give us five whole seconds more daylight than today. But it is getting better. For the next six months, every day will be lighter (though it will take 6-8 weeks to get out to where the difference is really worthwhile, and three months till I will shift gears into summer-light mode).

Also good: in a few days, I will be able to go out without hearing trite Christmas music everywhere. Tomorrow is one bit of family festivity (preceded by the dentist, oh joy), and the 24th is another (preceded by baking for it); then on the 25th we can go to a movie and veg out and then the horror will be over for this year.

The bad: now it's winter. And we have grey, dank, drizzly weather. I want sun. I'd take snow over this dreary version of winter. Snow is bright. And Sir John loves it, so at least one of us would be happy and one would be several degrees less wretched.

Time passes. The holidays will pass, the weather will pass, the winter will pass. Soon enough, I'll have to show up for classes and act like I'm in my right mind, which will help; and before we know it, spring break will arrive and then it will be conference season.

It's just these short days that seem so long. So dreary, and so pointless. Even with my full-spectrum light, and exercise outdoors early in the day, and more exercise, and baking and so on. Maybe I should just start going to Morocco by myself.

Weekend bullets

• Sir John has had a cold for several days. I think I'm finally getting it. So I'm staying up late to try to finish grading before I feel awful.
• Of course I should have finished already.
  
• Why, with all the "teaching to the test" that presumably happens in schools these days, can my students not manage to read and follow simple instructions?
  
• Grading the outlines of essays (on exams) goes much faster than grading translations.
• I can't believe I made it through the whole semester without getting sick; but then, why now? Why could I not just avoid illness altogether?
• I would much rather be working on the MMP, and this morning I procrastinated for awhile by staring at handwriting snippets trying to decide if one A resembled another. Or not.
• On a related handwriting question, I found a reference to an opinion of Ian Doyle's that was . . . wrong. Not in a major way, but he left out a perfectly legible* letter. My world reeled.
• *Perfectly legible if you read English secretary hands.
• Every time I look at an example of secretary, I panic and think all my skills have fled, or maybe I was deluding myself all along. It takes several minutes to get my eye in and start seeing the shapes again.
• Really I should be thinking big-picture thoughts about the MMP, not tiny-detail thoughts. Have I mentioned that I'm nearsighted?
• Must finish grading translations. Then if I'm sick tomorrow I can spend days lying on the couch watching B5 DVDs and drinking toddies, guilt-free.
  

Very bad news from the Chron fora

Not that I've ever got the grading fairy to show up, but I always thought the cats frightened them off. I can't bear to think there just aren't any. And for such a lousy reason, too.

At least I'm making grading progress on my own.

Re: Ask Mended Drum your nagging questions here; get a completely awesome answer. « Reply #220 on: December 02, 2011, 03:02:46 PM »

---

Quote from: concordancia on December 02, 2011, 01:52:48 PM

Will the grading and final writing fairy come if I take the afternoon off for beta testing a game?

The last known member of that particular species of fairy was throttled to death during a regional assessment committee visit to a formerly pleasant campus. Rumor says that the murderer was a member of SACS.

Random bullets of November

I'm feeling unimaginative lately, which is why I haven't posted anything. I'm not even desperately busy; indeed, if I were, I'd probably have more heretical ideas about teaching, or more updating about writing projects, or whines about committee meetings. But we're just chugging along here. Nonetheless, just to prove I'm still alive in the blogosphere:

• The Grammarian is a very strange sort of picky eater. He meows piteously for food. I put down a plate with his usual food on it. He stares at it in horrified disbelief and informs me that I am trying to poison him, he can't eat this slop, he has been miserably betrayed by someone he had trusted to have his best interests at heart, etc. etc. I run my finger through the food, force his mouth open and smear it on his tongue, whereupon he says, "OMG cat fud!!! Why u not SAY so?" and sets to.
• Why is it so hard to find a financial-advice book that will just answer some simple questions (or at least run through a list of things to think about when considering various situations) without a lot of touchy-feely claptrap? With all due respect to the Grumpy Pair (and that's quite a lot of respect) and their enjoyment of Your Money or Your Life, I'm quite clear on my values and my risk tolerance, I am very well aware of the costs of my commute, and I don't want to live in jeans and thrifted clothing making my own bean soup like some damned hippie (grumble grumble), except on maybe one weekend a month, because I do, after all, hail from hippieville and the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree. Suze Ormond, a recommendation from someone else, also has a lot of "spiritual" blah-blah. I just want to know, hypothetically, how to balance the tax advantages of having a mortgage plus a larger lump sum in the bank against not having a mortgage and having a smaller lump in the bank. Sure, it's a nice hypothetical problem to have. How do I approach it?
• In these days of miracle and wonder, the long-distance call and e-mail, it is a complete delight to get a hand-written letter from an old friend. Such a sense of intimacy and connection! It's enough to make me contemplate sending a few Christmas Solstice cards.
• One more week of classes. Just three days of actually meeting students. But OMG that means I have to invent a final exam right quick.
• I am never going to get involved in conference-organizing again. Be it resolved.
• Writing update: I have now drafted two chapters of the Unexpected Book. Both need work, especially with source material, but the basic argument is in place. I think I am going to use the winter break to try to finish an article (the MMP) that should have been finished a year ago; my library now has a reference work I need, so that should help a bit, except that the library will be closed for a couple of weeks (where are the foreign/broke graduate students supposed to go???). I will need to cannibalize that chapter for a conference paper this spring (and I think I should get at least some of the source material worked into that paper), and I have another conference paper to write, so making this decision makes me a little nervous: I'd rather like to do those things first. OTOH, conference papers don't have to be as complete or as polished as full articles, and I do have the chapter as a base for the one; so I think I can do those things while teaching, whereas the MMP needs some undiluted thinking time. And it would be so great to get that particular monkey off my back.
• Now that I mention it, getting the MMP out ASAP is a great idea because if I can get an R&R within six months, I can work on it in the summer while I will have access to the relevant manuscripts. Be it resolved.
  

The Existentialists and happiness

One day Camus had said: "Happiness exists, and it's important; why refuse it? You don't make other people's unhappiness any worse by accepting it; it even helps you to fight for them. Yes," he had concluded, "I find it sad the way everyone seems to be ashamed of feeling happy nowadays." I agreed with him completely.

Simone de Beauvoir. Force of Circumstance. Vol. 1: After the War. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Originally published as La Force des choses, Paris: Gallimard, 1963. 162.

I apologize for the translation: I acquired my copies of Beauvoir's biographies in my middle teens, before I learned French.

At any rate: if even the existentialists believe in being happy, why in the world should the rest of us suffer? It is the weekend, so we will sing.

Book meme

I got this from the Little Professor. But I’m answering these questions selectively—just those I had a strong reaction to.

1. Favorite childhood book?
Just one? Childhood lasts awhile, you know. Tastes and abilities change between 5 and 12. They change between 11 and 11 1/2, come to that. But if you insist, I think I was and am particularly fond of Noel Streatfield’s Ballet Shoes.

2. What are you reading right now?
A blog, you silly person.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
More than 60 books, on assorted medieval topics.

6. Do you have an e-reader?
Yes. It was a gift. I haven’t put anything on it in the, um, year and a half? that I’ve had it.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Not since starting my own one. Since starting to read blogs, yes: I read fewer novels.

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
What is it with the favorites? I like different things for different reasons, in different moods and circumstances. It’s not as if I keep a pile of this year’s books around organized from top to bottom in order of how much I loved them. It’s not even as if I can remember what I’ve read this year or last year.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
Fuck right off! Put that down, now!

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
In pencil, lightly. I find it difficult to write in books, even my own. Post-it notes are very common, though.

22. Favorite genre?
Again with the favorites. I am not such a simple character.

26. Favorite cookbook?
Get a grip! Depends on what I’m cooking.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Depends on which critics (is this a “favorite” question in disguise?). I encourage grad students to get to know the works of scholars in their field so they’ll know whether they can count on their reviews. From some people, a bad review means I know I’m going to want to read the book.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Modern language? I already read fluently in French and Spanish; with a dictionary I can get through Italian and German adequately. So I think I’d go for something more exotic, like Arabic or Japanese. Dead languages . . . I’ve made a couple of attempts at classical Greek, so it might be nice to get a shortcut to fluency there, but then again, if I’m taking shortcuts, I’d probably pick hieroglyphic Egyptian. Or cuneiform.

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
For the love of . . . listen, a book is an inanimate object. It’s not even a dangerous object, like a gun or a guillotine. I have never been intimidated by a book. And neither should you be. No one can intimidate you without your consent.

35. Favorite Poet?
W. H. Auden. Or Louise Labé. Or A. C. Swinburne. Diane Wakoski has her points. So does Charles d’Orléans. And Francis Jammes. I think I should go back to my “that’s too simplistic” stance on the topic of “favorite.”

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
I decline to answer this on the ground that it may tend to incriminate me.

38. Favorite fictional character?
39. Favorite fictional villain?
Go away, I’m tired of these.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Take. Unless you are currently on vacation, in which case you have indeed brought books, you will take a book or books on vacation.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
You mean, while I’m awake? I can’t read after an eye doctor has dilated my pupils for that one test they do . . . that may last 4-5 hours.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
Comma splices.

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
La la la la la. Not answering. You don’t want to know, anyway. But I’ll tell you this: two years ago I spent $250 on a single book and knew I had a bargain, though the people I was traveling with gasped when I answered their question about the cost.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Why would you feel guilty about reading? This is like the intimidation question. Whoever thought this thing up has some psychological problems.

Now for something completely frivolous . . .

Should I get a pair of flannel pyjamas with owls on?

I usually sleep in a t-shirt. Or leggings and a t-shirt. Or half of Sir John's pyjamas with something of mine on the other half. I rarely am in a situation where anyone but Sir John is likely to see me in my sleepwear, so I don't feel any particular need to look even presentable, let alone matchy-matchy. Furthermore, I detest the pastel cutesy look of lots of women's nightwear. So I just don't buy any.

But these are royal blue, not pastel, despite the eyelet trim. And they have owls.

Then again, I toss and turn too much in bed for flannel to be a good idea—I'd wake myself up when the p.j.'s pulled against the sheets. I think I'm talking myself out of it.

But. Owls!

Some families

"Oh, God, if you could just see my brothers, you'd see what a refinement it is for you to spend time missing [your sister]. Christ, why do you all have such marvellous relatives and wives and husbands to worry about? Why didn't I have a few, just a few?"

Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem the Golden

Paint colors

Why do so many people whose houses are on the market around here have the walls painted such dull, sludgy, light-eating colors? The most appetizing is biscuit-beige, but I've seen a lot of pale slug green, medium khaki, dull-as-dirt brown, and similar shades that I find ugly as sin.

Oddly, we have not been in a single house with a red dining room, when (from what I can tell from many walks in the area) every third or fourth house has a red dining room. Sir John says that people with red dining rooms don't feel like selling their houses.

If I were trying to sell a house, I'd probably paint all the walls ivory, magnolia, or similar pale, unexciting color that could easily be painted over.

If I were moving into a house, I'd be getting paint in clear, pale, cheerful colors, for the most part: sunny yellow, robin's-egg blue, peach, maybe lavender. And then bright orange in my study, where it would just peek out as an accent from behind bookcases and file cabinets.

I simply cannot see why anyone, anywhere, ever, would want to live in a slug-colored room.

Writing and Windows

This is not a metaphor, nor about software. I like big windows and lots of natural light. I don't think I noticed this so much until I spent four years, in graduate school, living in a basement apartment. In many ways, it was the nicest place I had ever lived, up to that point, but it did not get a lot of sunlight, and I came to crave light.

I rented my first post-school apartment on a cloudy day. Because the town was on a grid, I was pretty sure that the apartment's windows faced east, south, and west. I hadn't realized there was a second, superimposed grid that ran differently. The room I had selected for my study, thinking it had a western exposure, actually faced north, and I never wanted to be in it, especially on days when the rest of the place was flooded with sunlight. I didn't get much done until I moved my desk to the living room, which faced south and east.

Then I moved to an apartment that did face east, south, and west, and I loved it, even though (or maybe because) it was a top-floor walk-up. I looked out into treetops. I started the day writing in a room that faced east and south, and as the day wore on, I often moved into the living room (south) and sometimes into the bedroom (west). The windows were very large. In the bedroom, there were French windows to a Juliet balcony. They were not well-insulated, and the building had many other problems, so that on the whole, I was relieved when I left. I have never missed the boiler, or the drafts, or certain of the people who moved in during my time there. But I still miss the light.

Now I sit before a wide window. From one side of it, I can see a tree, though I wouldn't say I look out into the treetops. I look out into the neighbors' windows, actually. But this is a good, big window, surrounded by pretty colors, and the other walls are lined with books. I could use more room, and I'd be happy to have a study with a bay window so I'd have even more light . . . oh, who are we kidding, I want to work in a solarium, basically.

We have been house-hunting for awhile, but the right house has not yet appeared. This one is too big, yet with not enough storage space; that one is too small (likewise that one and that other one). We saw one I loved, but it didn't really have enough wall space for all of our books, and it had at least one feature that is a deal-breaker for Sir John. There's one that has been on the market for awhile, at which we have looked at least three times now. It has many features we both like. But I went and looked at it again this morning, thinking about morning light and what it would be like to live in that house, to get up there and make some tea and do some writing before feeding the yowling hordes, and I realized that my biggest objection to that house is that its windows are too small.

There are other things. I wish that house were on a lot that is oriented differently. I think it's stupid to put the bathroom on the southeast corner (all that lovely light potential wasted on a bathroom?). I wish some of the windows didn't get such a great view of the neighbors' walls. On the other hand, it's on a nice block, the garden is lovely, and I love the basement, which seems sort of sick when I'm all about the light. But the basement is beautifully finished, with lots of storage space. There's a useable room down there, but the basement is neither totally transformed into a family or rec room with no storage, nor is it a cavernous, dark, unfinished hole (we've seen both).

Mainly, I now realize, I'm not happy about the windows. There are plenty of them, and the bedrooms all have two exposures. But except for the living room and family room (front and back of the first floor) the windows are small. The bedroom windows are less than half the size of the ones in our current house. And I don't think I can live with that. Expanding them might be a possibility. I'm not sure how much that would cost, though I have some rough idea from simply replacing (not expanding) ours a few years ago. I can easily imagine the dust that would be generated. I'd really like to move into a house that didn't need anything beyond maybe a coat of paint.

I am totally phototropaic: I follow light around. I want my study to be a room that I want to be in. If it isn't, I won't get anything done. Spoiled? Maybe so, but it's how I am, and it would be stupid not to take that into account.

Another one bites the dust

Women of a certain age (and other scholars) have been leaving us right and left lately: Liz Taylor, Geraldine Ferraro, and now Sara Ruddick. I am not a philosopher; in fact, if phrenology were a science, there would be a large hole in my head wherever the bump for philosophy ought to be. The only work of Ruddick's I ever read was the essay collection Working it Out. But that book was so important to me that it is still on my shelves, though I can't remember the last time I handled it. It's at the office, not at home, so I am working from memory today.

I acquired a copy while I was still in college in the 1980s. Not for a class; it must have come from a used book store, of which there were many in town. The essays by women, many of them academics, who had struggled to claim lives that included work and the rest of what they wanted, whether or not that included children, travel, a partner of either sex, inspired me as I was trying to work out what I wanted in my life and how to get it. That book said to me, There are options. It said, You can do things if you figure out how. It said, Yes, there will be challenges because you are a woman, but your sex doesn't define your relationship to work.

Without having the book to hand, I can't remember many specifics about its contents. I think I recall a scientist's essay about her lab work, and I know I had the sensation, reading it, that I could try on various lives: what would it be like to be a writer, an artist, a scientist, a mother who was devoted to something other than child-rearing, Girl Scouts, and the PTA? At the beginning of each essay was a picture of its writer, usually in some characteristic place or pose, and I remember poring over those for clues to what the adult life I wanted might look like. Reading it was the same sort of pleasure that reading blogs is, now: the chance to discover other possibilities, and that others face similar obstacles, and can advise on how to overcome them.

The essay that over many years meant the most to me, the one that I do remember by author, is by Virginia Valian, about solving a work problem, that is, getting oneself to start working (writing) when one has not been working. The author lived with a man who suggested starting by working for three hours. Three hours! The very thought triggered an anxiety attack. Two hours! The very thought . . . . But she could cope with 15 minutes, so she set a timer for 15 minutes, and when she was comfortable with that, added another 15-minute session, and so on. (I found that there is a PDF of this article available, at maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/.../1977workingItOut.pdf; there's also a table of contents, so now I'm thinking, "Wow, how did I forget that Alice Walker was in here? And Tillie Olsen?" But anyway . . . )

Now we're all familiar with such techniques, but this (in the 1980s, remember) was the first time I had seen anybody address both the specifics of what you needed to do and the larger context of anxiety and expectations that make it so difficult to tackle some projects. What do you do when you know you "have it in you" but can't figure out where to start? Valian had always thought of herself as someone who would become Someone, but getting down to brass tacks was harder. She wanted to get away from the fantasies of what could happen, and focus on the enjoyability of work for its own sake.

I'm going to re-read the essay now that I've found it, but I treasure my memories of it, as well, however vague or imprecise they may be. It was useful in college, in grad school, pre-tenure. The whole book was a treasure, at least to my college self, and I want to pay tribute to the woman who co-edited it and thereby showed a lot of women what might be.

Balladry

One of my forthcoming pieces is about a set of verses I have spent five years tracking through various manuscript collections, including some very tattered assemblages of loose sheets with odd notations. Among them I discovered some tantalizing stanzas. Though I have not found anything quite like them elsewhere, I am tempted to try my hand at finishing the ballad they appear to belong to:

The dame called her scriveyn near,
and said the gome vntil,
"Use yr best yr fairest hand
to write my lord this bille."

He wroot it with the quill of goose,
he wroot with quill of swanne;
ever the lady shook her head
& said sche wd haue nane.

He wroot it in the light of moon,
he wroot in light of sunne;
ever the lady shook her head
& said again he mun.

He took in hand a quill of doue,
and wroot in lettres fine;
again the lady shook her head
& [indecipherable] line.

At last he laid his ink aside,
& dropped his weary head.
& then there came a little man
dressed in green and red.

"What will ye gie me, Thomas True,
what will ye gie for mine,
if I write this bille for you
in letters true and fine?"

Whatever it takes

Somewhere in the popular press recently I saw an article about what helps celebrities cope with their fame, keep producing the songs or whatever that made them famous, and the differences between "successful" celebrities and the one-album wonders. A key factor (it was claimed) was the belief that God wanted them to be famous.

It seems like a corollary would be that atheists either can't be famous or can't stay famous, but whatever. I thought to myself, "Suppose I believed in a goddess of academic success, and believed that she wanted me to be successful?"

"No, come on, self, stop laughing; just play around with the idea for a few minutes. Just for fun. She looks like Maggie Smith? Okay, I can go with that. What does it feel like to believe (just for a minute) that the goddess of academic success wants me to be successful?"

. . . . . . . . .

Well, look, I tried. I think I'm too cynical for some affirmations. Also, Benjamin Franklin got mixed up in there somehow, because the way it wound up being phrased was, "The goddess of academic success loves me and wants me to be happy."*

In other words, Maggie Smith is urging me to have another beer.

*"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." I don't have a citation; it's attributed to him on t-shirts and stuff. Check with an Americanist on whether Franklin really said it.

Our New Zealand Correspondants

Has anyone heard from Styley Geek or Bavardess since the quake?

Don't make it worse

This is my winter motto, to go with What Now's "suck less." So you can't figure out where a potentially useful half-hour went and why you're now late leaving for the gym? Don't make it worse by stewing over what you were (or were not) doing with that half-hour. It's not going to get any earlier if you realize how long you spent reading the newspaper. You're late with some project? Don't make it worse by letting embarrassment about being late cause further procrastination; get on with it.

Don't know why you haven't yet done X, Y or Z with your life? Well, don't make it worse. If you really want to do those things, get started. It'll never be any earlier.

It sounds a bit grim (and feels it, too), but it's better than the stewing.

Wonderfully different? Wondrously pissed?

I "heart" all you people who are pissed off by that prompt.

Still crossing fingers, but I think the cats are doing better today.

I don't have much idea who my "followers" are, but I did notice that I recently lost one. Too much cat blogging? Too much whining? You can't please everybody, all of the time. Thank you for going away quietly, without telling me what's wrong with my blog.

And now, back to grading exams and surveilling cat poop.

Slinky and the Dame

Remember the Brain? "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!"

Well, here's a pale imitation. Yup, I have succumbed to the xtranormal bug. Go ahead, throw the tomatoes. And the dead mice.

Of letters I need but five . . .

(or rather four, one repeated), to write me down a cynic.

I thought the original video about grad school in the humanities was too true to be really funny.

And the kinder, gentler version is boring. Not funny. Possibly useful for aspiring students, or for profs who would rather say "go watch this video" instead of having either conversation.

I'm not nice enough to keep my mouth shut altogether, but I can at least not snark in other people's comments. But, people . . . I'm grading over here. If I'm going to use my rather slow internet connection to load videos, I want them to be funny.