Well, it's official: Lucas is now doing some kind of squirmy crawling that no longer involves sticking his butt in the air and planting his forehead on the ground to drag himself forward. He's best at pivoting and travelling backward.
Looks like I'll be vacuuming a lot more. Great. I really wish he had waited until at least the next chapter is finished. (You know, like next week. 'Cause the last one only took me 9.5 months. So this one will be a breeze, because I deserve it to be so, right?)
Lucas weighs in on the phenomenon:
vccdnmr ,mdddses33as vde x http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7233317853
g[[[[[[[[[
Yes, that's right--he managed to paste an entire URL. The boy's a genius.
-8 9juj zxc cas n k
'.;;k ; huuybjm
=-l]io;,[[ j
c c c..?
[
',.;\v[
h∆ยต ≥X ZX ASASzzm //l,km mn fv b v ,. opk ∫˙ xxASXC CV VS ;. MDDF FVB DSS V
,fbk
n jm v c c v v ?
P.S.-- anyone know how to replace a Mac iBook key that's been pried off by little hands? >:P
Monday, April 10, 2006
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Blogging for Books: "Fly on the wall"
It's once again time for Blogging for Books. Head on over to Faster Than Kudzu to learn more and participate. This week's theme is "fly on the wall."
I was, for a brief period, a staff writer for a local community newspaper. The office was arranged so that the advertising and graphics folks worked downstairs on the main floor, while the lowly editorial staff (all four of us) shared a dark space upstairs with a single, low window. It was supposed to be a storage space, and there were wires hanging everywhere and bars on the window. In other words, it was a fire trap.
It made me a bit nervous, this space, although it also played into my tendency toward shyness, so even when everyone else was downstairs, I frequently found myself alone upstairs. Since my workload was minimal, I had a lot of thumb-twiddling time, and I would often sit unseen in the shadows at the top of the narrow stairs, listening and watching the people in the well-lit spaces below.
Many of the employees had worked in the office for more than a decade, and to say that inhibitions were low would be an understatement. Just one example: I once caught the art director, Pete, flossing his teeth and flinging tartar at his assistant while his assistant brushed flakes of sunburnt skin back at Pete. And this with the executive editor and publisher in the room.
Despite persistent flashbacks to junior high, between writing hard-hitting articles on grunion runs and Jiffy Lube openings, I remained a fly on the wall, watching and listening. Increasingly, I focused on Pete, the floss guy. This surprised me, as when I was being introduced around the office on my first day of work, Pete made some quip about the outfit I was wearing--an ensemble I had obsessed over and remained nervous about, as I had no idea how a community reporter was supposed to dress--and I remember thinking to myself, "Stay away from that guy."
Still, in spite of my reservations about him, I kept my eye on Pete. I discovered he was an expert multitasker, laying out the newspaper and dealing with ad reps while screening the phone messages for the singles ads. See, in addition to being the art director, Pete was the paper's telepimp, meaning he had to listen to the phone messages left by people who had taken out singles ads. In order for the newspaper to make money off the ads--the ads' readers called to listen to the messages at an exorbitant per-minute rate--the singles weren't allowed to leave any kind of contact information that would circumvent the singles ad system.
Of course, Pete being Pete, he screened these ads on speakerphone. As a card-carrying Good Girl, it would never have occurred to me to meet someone through a newspaper, but I took some voyeuristic delight in listening to the recordings:
Voice of a white woman in her late 30s or early 40s. Her nervousness is apparent: We are a very clean couple looking for someone for. . .some. . .fun. . .
Deep voice of a man: First off, you should know that I am an older gentleman and have a very hairy chest. Gray hair. Lots of it. Some ladies aren't into that. . .
And so on. Nothing too obscene or explicit, but the range of voices was fascinating and funny and sad. Pete didn't seem to notice as he plugged along on the fictitious business name statements that followed the singles ads.
Pete, it turned out, was a 37-year-old guy with barely a high-school education. He volunteered the fact that he'd been sober for almost a year and that, when his best friend offered him a handful of mysterious pills on his birthday, he turned them down. This was a source of pride for Pete, though I suspect there were days that he returned from lunch a wee bit stoned. I'd never worked with a guy who admitted so easily to being a stoner, and I certainly never pictured sheltered, newly Master's-degreed, 23-year-old me working alongside an addict whose roots stretched to a trailer park in Tucson.
But Pete was brilliant. He told me he had applied for a writing job at the paper 11 years previously. Since his background was in design, the publisher asked Pete if he'd be interested in helping with that aspect of the paper instead. Unfortunately, Pete had zero computer experience, and the job required him to use an early Macintosh and page layout software. Pete volunteered to work for a week without pay as an extended interview for the position. At the end of that week, Pete had not only taught himself to use a mouse and the Mac OS, but he had produced a newspaper.
Meanwhile, I was having trouble getting my cub reporter feet under me. As the lowest writer on the newspaper's totem pole, I was stuck translating press releases into calendar items. Was it date first, then time, or time then date? Argh. I had to write it on a sticky note.
Honestly, I was distracted. While upstairs was a safe haven, downstairs was much more lively and attractive and fresh (literally--I worked in an unventilated space with a chain smoker who, although he took his smoke breaks outside, was, as far as I was concerned, a walking asthma attack because of the stench of his clothes).
Compared to the calendar and the filler pieces I wrote,
next to to the innumerable articles I had to write talking up Long Beach's annual craptastic pollute-a-thon,
in the light of city council news that, in the four generations my family had lived in the city, never got any less stupid,
downstairs, where everyday life took place, events that no one had to market or lobby for, was suddenly where I, professional wallflower, wanted to be.
But I was shy. So I eavesdropped, crept lower and lower on the stairs, let my feet dangle into the light of downstairs so that someone would notice and call me to account.
That person was Pete. Soon--perhaps due to his behind-the-scenes wrangling--I was assigned to show up early twice a week to serve as paste-up monkey (yes, in a digital age, we still did paste-up). We chatted a lot about all kinds of stuff before everyone else showed up for work. Slowly, carefully, Pete transformed me from fly on the wall into Funny Girl Who Worked Upstairs and Graced Us with Her Presence Quite a Bit.
What could I do? A few years, two grad programs, and a handful of short-term jobs later I married the guy with the floss. And I've noticed that he, too, can be tempted to linger in the margins, to be a fly on the wall, and so sometimes, when I'm very lucky, it's my turn to pull him into the light.
I was, for a brief period, a staff writer for a local community newspaper. The office was arranged so that the advertising and graphics folks worked downstairs on the main floor, while the lowly editorial staff (all four of us) shared a dark space upstairs with a single, low window. It was supposed to be a storage space, and there were wires hanging everywhere and bars on the window. In other words, it was a fire trap.
It made me a bit nervous, this space, although it also played into my tendency toward shyness, so even when everyone else was downstairs, I frequently found myself alone upstairs. Since my workload was minimal, I had a lot of thumb-twiddling time, and I would often sit unseen in the shadows at the top of the narrow stairs, listening and watching the people in the well-lit spaces below.
Many of the employees had worked in the office for more than a decade, and to say that inhibitions were low would be an understatement. Just one example: I once caught the art director, Pete, flossing his teeth and flinging tartar at his assistant while his assistant brushed flakes of sunburnt skin back at Pete. And this with the executive editor and publisher in the room.
Despite persistent flashbacks to junior high, between writing hard-hitting articles on grunion runs and Jiffy Lube openings, I remained a fly on the wall, watching and listening. Increasingly, I focused on Pete, the floss guy. This surprised me, as when I was being introduced around the office on my first day of work, Pete made some quip about the outfit I was wearing--an ensemble I had obsessed over and remained nervous about, as I had no idea how a community reporter was supposed to dress--and I remember thinking to myself, "Stay away from that guy."
Still, in spite of my reservations about him, I kept my eye on Pete. I discovered he was an expert multitasker, laying out the newspaper and dealing with ad reps while screening the phone messages for the singles ads. See, in addition to being the art director, Pete was the paper's telepimp, meaning he had to listen to the phone messages left by people who had taken out singles ads. In order for the newspaper to make money off the ads--the ads' readers called to listen to the messages at an exorbitant per-minute rate--the singles weren't allowed to leave any kind of contact information that would circumvent the singles ad system.
Of course, Pete being Pete, he screened these ads on speakerphone. As a card-carrying Good Girl, it would never have occurred to me to meet someone through a newspaper, but I took some voyeuristic delight in listening to the recordings:
Voice of a white woman in her late 30s or early 40s. Her nervousness is apparent: We are a very clean couple looking for someone for. . .some. . .fun. . .
Deep voice of a man: First off, you should know that I am an older gentleman and have a very hairy chest. Gray hair. Lots of it. Some ladies aren't into that. . .
And so on. Nothing too obscene or explicit, but the range of voices was fascinating and funny and sad. Pete didn't seem to notice as he plugged along on the fictitious business name statements that followed the singles ads.
Pete, it turned out, was a 37-year-old guy with barely a high-school education. He volunteered the fact that he'd been sober for almost a year and that, when his best friend offered him a handful of mysterious pills on his birthday, he turned them down. This was a source of pride for Pete, though I suspect there were days that he returned from lunch a wee bit stoned. I'd never worked with a guy who admitted so easily to being a stoner, and I certainly never pictured sheltered, newly Master's-degreed, 23-year-old me working alongside an addict whose roots stretched to a trailer park in Tucson.
But Pete was brilliant. He told me he had applied for a writing job at the paper 11 years previously. Since his background was in design, the publisher asked Pete if he'd be interested in helping with that aspect of the paper instead. Unfortunately, Pete had zero computer experience, and the job required him to use an early Macintosh and page layout software. Pete volunteered to work for a week without pay as an extended interview for the position. At the end of that week, Pete had not only taught himself to use a mouse and the Mac OS, but he had produced a newspaper.
Meanwhile, I was having trouble getting my cub reporter feet under me. As the lowest writer on the newspaper's totem pole, I was stuck translating press releases into calendar items. Was it date first, then time, or time then date? Argh. I had to write it on a sticky note.
Honestly, I was distracted. While upstairs was a safe haven, downstairs was much more lively and attractive and fresh (literally--I worked in an unventilated space with a chain smoker who, although he took his smoke breaks outside, was, as far as I was concerned, a walking asthma attack because of the stench of his clothes).
Compared to the calendar and the filler pieces I wrote,
next to to the innumerable articles I had to write talking up Long Beach's annual craptastic pollute-a-thon,
in the light of city council news that, in the four generations my family had lived in the city, never got any less stupid,
downstairs, where everyday life took place, events that no one had to market or lobby for, was suddenly where I, professional wallflower, wanted to be.
But I was shy. So I eavesdropped, crept lower and lower on the stairs, let my feet dangle into the light of downstairs so that someone would notice and call me to account.
That person was Pete. Soon--perhaps due to his behind-the-scenes wrangling--I was assigned to show up early twice a week to serve as paste-up monkey (yes, in a digital age, we still did paste-up). We chatted a lot about all kinds of stuff before everyone else showed up for work. Slowly, carefully, Pete transformed me from fly on the wall into Funny Girl Who Worked Upstairs and Graced Us with Her Presence Quite a Bit.
What could I do? A few years, two grad programs, and a handful of short-term jobs later I married the guy with the floss. And I've noticed that he, too, can be tempted to linger in the margins, to be a fly on the wall, and so sometimes, when I'm very lucky, it's my turn to pull him into the light.
The sounds of. . . well, not silence.
Mr. Trillwing and Lucas are both tucked snugly in their beds, so I finally have some quiet time to catch up on those books I promised myself I'd skim or review before diving into the next chapter.
Of course, as soon as I settled on the couch, some astonishingly awful karaoke began to permeate our apartment complex. Sung in Chinese. At Lucas-level wailing. Makes it hard to focus on the ol' Haraway Reader, y'know?
Now it's totally understandable that the neighbors would want to pay us back for Luke's early morning mania. However, karaoke is a low blow indeed.
Of course, as soon as I settled on the couch, some astonishingly awful karaoke began to permeate our apartment complex. Sung in Chinese. At Lucas-level wailing. Makes it hard to focus on the ol' Haraway Reader, y'know?
Now it's totally understandable that the neighbors would want to pay us back for Luke's early morning mania. However, karaoke is a low blow indeed.
Dr. Doolittle
Well, it's 3:10 a.m., and the Porpoise Whisperer is at it again, only this time he's summoning barn owls. At least those live on our block, so he's not needing to project his voice quite as much. Plus, this morning there's a nifty muffling effect from the big plastic donut stacking thingies he's shoving in his mouth.
So now I'm wondering. . . Should I be proofing TCTRTBC at 3:16 a.m. with my little raptor screeching at my side? Probably not.
Instead I shall share with you some of the recent searches that brought folks to The Clutter Museum. It's nice to know what my blog is really about. My favorites are in boldface:
caleb mcdaniel's man boobs
how does a chicken conceive an egg
trojan sousaphones
feminist emily dickinson
greasy scalp dandruff
lactating
i didn't like being a creative memories consultant
groups of male and female cheerleaders
june carter fall in love cash
dress for a jrotc ball
playboy bunny
i believe powerpoint
there must be something
baby monitors my neighbor can't hear
the role of the french horn in the orchestra
hulkbuster
bunnies
endometriosis and the military
high school cheerleaders
prune juice
interdisciplinarity sucks (2x)
leslie train horn
cheney sings johnny cash
digital scrapbooking
creative memories consultant
"depression in academia"
being pregnant and orajel
establishing routines
"cheese penguin" lindsay
squirrels
clutter family
give me a museum and i'll fit it
scrapbooking intertwining lives
crapbooking
circumcised
tiny sex hi
skills ahoy
"i like squirrels" (repeatedly)
Personally, I'd like to see "hulkbuster" and "bunnies" in the same search. That would make me happy.
-----
Bonus exclamation, 2 minutes ago:
Barn owls don't try to give their mamas hickeys!
So now I'm wondering. . . Should I be proofing TCTRTBC at 3:16 a.m. with my little raptor screeching at my side? Probably not.
Instead I shall share with you some of the recent searches that brought folks to The Clutter Museum. It's nice to know what my blog is really about. My favorites are in boldface:
caleb mcdaniel's man boobs
how does a chicken conceive an egg
trojan sousaphones
feminist emily dickinson
greasy scalp dandruff
lactating
i didn't like being a creative memories consultant
groups of male and female cheerleaders
june carter fall in love cash
dress for a jrotc ball
playboy bunny
i believe powerpoint
there must be something
baby monitors my neighbor can't hear
the role of the french horn in the orchestra
hulkbuster
bunnies
endometriosis and the military
high school cheerleaders
prune juice
interdisciplinarity sucks (2x)
leslie train horn
cheney sings johnny cash
digital scrapbooking
creative memories consultant
"depression in academia"
being pregnant and orajel
establishing routines
"cheese penguin" lindsay
squirrels
clutter family
give me a museum and i'll fit it
scrapbooking intertwining lives
crapbooking
circumcised
tiny sex hi
skills ahoy
"i like squirrels" (repeatedly)
Personally, I'd like to see "hulkbuster" and "bunnies" in the same search. That would make me happy.
-----
Bonus exclamation, 2 minutes ago:
Barn owls don't try to give their mamas hickeys!
Friday, April 07, 2006
Friday Poetry Blogging
Getting back on track here after a hiatus from poetry.
Today's selection is by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Unless my memory fails me as a former English major, I believe Hopkins was a Jesuit priest with a distaste for Latinate words. Um, yeah.
Thanks to this quirk, he wrote, IMHO, some of the most beautiful poetry in the English language. The following poem is one of my favorites of his, even though I'm not a religious person. The imagery and sound are just so wonderful.
God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Today's selection is by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Unless my memory fails me as a former English major, I believe Hopkins was a Jesuit priest with a distaste for Latinate words. Um, yeah.
Thanks to this quirk, he wrote, IMHO, some of the most beautiful poetry in the English language. The following poem is one of my favorites of his, even though I'm not a religious person. The imagery and sound are just so wonderful.
God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
And for all this, nature is never spent;
The Chapter That Refuses To Be Completed
Good news: I just realized that The Chapter That Refuses to Be Completed shall today become the Chapter That RefuseD To Be Completed. There's so little left to do on it, as far as I'm concerned, that it's inevitable that a full draft will get done today.
I've been working on it since last July. JULY!
Update: It's finally fully drafted. I have a feeling it still has some gaps that Fabulous Adviser and Tough Reader will want me to fill, but I'm happy enough turning it in after I proofread its 60+ pages tomorrow morning.
I've been working on it since last July. JULY!
Update: It's finally fully drafted. I have a feeling it still has some gaps that Fabulous Adviser and Tough Reader will want me to fill, but I'm happy enough turning it in after I proofread its 60+ pages tomorrow morning.
Women writers meme
Last seen at the fabulous Phantom Scribbler's.
Instructions: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've been wanting/might like to read. ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of?? Put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.
Allcott, Louisa May–Little Women
*Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
*Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
*Atwood, Margaret–Cat's Eye (I think I've read just about everything else by her.)
*Austen, Jane–Emma
Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex (should read it, but probably won't)
*Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
*Byatt, A.S.–Possession
*Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
*Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
??Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
??Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics (another "should, but probably won't")
Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems Oh, wait--I read The Complete Poems. I really like Dickinson, but it's hard to read her poems without hearing the Gilligan's Island theme song.
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, George–Middlemarch
??Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
*Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (think I saw the movie...)
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine–July's People (shoulda)
Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology
*Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
*hooks, bell–Bone Black
*Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona
??Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them) gag
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
*Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
*Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
*Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
Larsen, Nella–Passing
L'Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
??Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
*Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them) ick!
McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
??Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
??Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
*Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller's Wife
*Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
Picoult, Jodi–My Sister's Keeper
*Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
??Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea (I can't believe I haven't yet read this)
Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping
??Rocha, Sharon–For Laci
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones (over-hyped, IMHO)
*Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
??Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
??Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
Steel, Danielle–The House
*Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
*Tannen, Deborah–You're Wearing That
Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife's Tale
??Urquhart, Jane–Away
*Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
*Welty, Eudora–One Writer's Beginnings
*Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
*Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
*Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One's Own
Instructions: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've been wanting/might like to read. ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of?? Put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.
Allcott, Louisa May–Little Women
*Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
*Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
*Atwood, Margaret–Cat's Eye (I think I've read just about everything else by her.)
*Austen, Jane–Emma
Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex (should read it, but probably won't)
*Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
*Byatt, A.S.–Possession
*Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
*Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
??Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
??Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics (another "should, but probably won't")
Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems Oh, wait--I read The Complete Poems. I really like Dickinson, but it's hard to read her poems without hearing the Gilligan's Island theme song.
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, George–Middlemarch
??Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
*Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (think I saw the movie...)
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine–July's People (shoulda)
Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology
*Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
*hooks, bell–Bone Black
*Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona
??Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them) gag
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
*Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
*Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
*Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
Larsen, Nella–Passing
L'Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
??Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
*Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them) ick!
McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
??Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
??Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
*Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller's Wife
*Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
Picoult, Jodi–My Sister's Keeper
*Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
??Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea (I can't believe I haven't yet read this)
Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping
??Rocha, Sharon–For Laci
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones (over-hyped, IMHO)
*Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
??Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
??Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
Steel, Danielle–The House
*Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
*Tannen, Deborah–You're Wearing That
Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife's Tale
??Urquhart, Jane–Away
*Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
*Welty, Eudora–One Writer's Beginnings
*Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
*Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
*Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One's Own
Early morning diversion
Well, the WonderInfant has decided that the 1 a.m. hour is a good time to, oh, try to communicate verbally with dolphins. Unfortunately, that's not a good frequency to use in an apartment complex at this time of the night, and since the nearest dolphins are probably about 100 miles away, he's amped up the volume quite a bit. To borrow from Spinal Tap, this child goes to 11.
So, to pass the time before the neighbors come knocking on the door asking about my propensity for torturing our little marine biologist at ungodly hours, I offer you this meme, which I most recently saw at BrightStar's.
1) Who is the last person you high-fived? Mr. Trillwing. I'm sure it was over some Lucas-related triumph.
2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive? No.
3) Do you sleep with the TV on? No.
4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton? Ewww. But I live with someone who does (he has a dedicated carton).
5) Have you ever won a spelling bee? Yes, in seventh grade.
6) Have you ever been stung by a bee? First time: a yellow jacket/paper wasp. Second and third times: honeybees, once on each ankle, through my socks, when I was--to make a long story short--the one technically responsible for causing and resolving a swarm inside a building at the California State Fair. The good news? I was the only person stung. Yay me.
7) How fast can you type? I took a test about 10 years ago, and I think it was 93 wpm, 1% error, or something like that.
8) Are you afraid of the dark? Depends on where I am.
9) What color are your eyes? Blue-gray.
10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in? I've never been to a drive-in.
11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower? When I was first recovering from childbirth.
12) Do you knock on wood? Yes. Fortunately, my dog's name is Woody and he's pretty dense sometimes, so if there's no real wood around, I can just gently rap on his little braincase. :)
13) Do you floss daily? Usually.
14) What happened to question #14? Huh?
15) Can you hula hoop? Never have been able to do this, and probably never well.
16) Are you good at keeping secrets? My own? No. Others'? Depends on context. Usually, yes.
17) What do you want for Christmas? A full night's sleep. (But earlier than that would be nice, oh Porpoise Whisperer.)
18) Do you know the Muffin Man? Any man with muffins (especially lemon poppyseed) is a friend of mine!
19) Do you talk in your sleep? All the time.
20) Who wrote the book of love? I don't know, but apparently it's edited by Diane Ackerman.
21) Have you ever flown a kite? Yes. I can't wait to show Lucas how to do this.
22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes? Haven't for awhile, no.
23) Do you consider yourself successful? At some things. I'm turning out to be a decent mommy, I think. I'm also a successful procrastinator.
24) How many people are on your contact list of your cell? Maybe 15-20.
25) Have you ever asked for a pony? All the time.
26) Plans for tomorrow? Write, write, write that The Dissertation That Will Not Let Me Put A Stake Through Its Heart. Entertain Dolphin Boy. Go to a birthday dinner for a family friend my husband calls The Last Boy Scout because of his affable manner and inexplicably conservative politics.
27) Can you juggle? Up to three of the same object.
28) Missing someone now? Yes, the sandman.
29) When was the last time you told someone I Love You? A few hours ago.
30) And truly meant it? Totally.
31) How often do you drink? Not frequently enough!
32) How are you feeling today? Sleeeeepy.
33) What do you say too much? In everyday conversation: "I mean. . ." To students: "Does that make sense?"
34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? No. I was (am?) a card-carrying Good Girl.
35) What are you looking forward to? Finishing TDTWNLMPASTIH (see #26).
36) Have you ever crawled through a window? Yes, as a child, to get into a locked house. Also to hang out on the loggia roof of my college dorm.
37) Have you ever eaten dog food? I seem to remember chomping down on a piece of dog kibble as a toddler. I also sampled fish food flakes. Pretty gross, I know...
38) Can you handle the truth? Usually.
39) Do you like green eggs and ham? Green eggs: perhaps. Ham of any color: no thanks.
40) Any cool scars? Emotional or physical?
So, to pass the time before the neighbors come knocking on the door asking about my propensity for torturing our little marine biologist at ungodly hours, I offer you this meme, which I most recently saw at BrightStar's.
1) Who is the last person you high-fived? Mr. Trillwing. I'm sure it was over some Lucas-related triumph.
2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive? No.
3) Do you sleep with the TV on? No.
4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton? Ewww. But I live with someone who does (he has a dedicated carton).
5) Have you ever won a spelling bee? Yes, in seventh grade.
6) Have you ever been stung by a bee? First time: a yellow jacket/paper wasp. Second and third times: honeybees, once on each ankle, through my socks, when I was--to make a long story short--the one technically responsible for causing and resolving a swarm inside a building at the California State Fair. The good news? I was the only person stung. Yay me.
7) How fast can you type? I took a test about 10 years ago, and I think it was 93 wpm, 1% error, or something like that.
8) Are you afraid of the dark? Depends on where I am.
9) What color are your eyes? Blue-gray.
10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in? I've never been to a drive-in.
11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower? When I was first recovering from childbirth.
12) Do you knock on wood? Yes. Fortunately, my dog's name is Woody and he's pretty dense sometimes, so if there's no real wood around, I can just gently rap on his little braincase. :)
13) Do you floss daily? Usually.
14) What happened to question #14? Huh?
15) Can you hula hoop? Never have been able to do this, and probably never well.
16) Are you good at keeping secrets? My own? No. Others'? Depends on context. Usually, yes.
17) What do you want for Christmas? A full night's sleep. (But earlier than that would be nice, oh Porpoise Whisperer.)
18) Do you know the Muffin Man? Any man with muffins (especially lemon poppyseed) is a friend of mine!
19) Do you talk in your sleep? All the time.
20) Who wrote the book of love? I don't know, but apparently it's edited by Diane Ackerman.
21) Have you ever flown a kite? Yes. I can't wait to show Lucas how to do this.
22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes? Haven't for awhile, no.
23) Do you consider yourself successful? At some things. I'm turning out to be a decent mommy, I think. I'm also a successful procrastinator.
24) How many people are on your contact list of your cell? Maybe 15-20.
25) Have you ever asked for a pony? All the time.
26) Plans for tomorrow? Write, write, write that The Dissertation That Will Not Let Me Put A Stake Through Its Heart. Entertain Dolphin Boy. Go to a birthday dinner for a family friend my husband calls The Last Boy Scout because of his affable manner and inexplicably conservative politics.
27) Can you juggle? Up to three of the same object.
28) Missing someone now? Yes, the sandman.
29) When was the last time you told someone I Love You? A few hours ago.
30) And truly meant it? Totally.
31) How often do you drink? Not frequently enough!
32) How are you feeling today? Sleeeeepy.
33) What do you say too much? In everyday conversation: "I mean. . ." To students: "Does that make sense?"
34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? No. I was (am?) a card-carrying Good Girl.
35) What are you looking forward to? Finishing TDTWNLMPASTIH (see #26).
36) Have you ever crawled through a window? Yes, as a child, to get into a locked house. Also to hang out on the loggia roof of my college dorm.
37) Have you ever eaten dog food? I seem to remember chomping down on a piece of dog kibble as a toddler. I also sampled fish food flakes. Pretty gross, I know...
38) Can you handle the truth? Usually.
39) Do you like green eggs and ham? Green eggs: perhaps. Ham of any color: no thanks.
40) Any cool scars? Emotional or physical?
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Catching up and falling behind (Rambling ahoy!)
Yay! For the first time in months, the crappy "computer" (an ancient Dell running Windows 95) in my "office"--a whitewashed, echoing room with two tables, three very unergonomic blue vinyl-upholstered chairs, and a student desk on a floor recently vacated by a couple of other departments--is letting me access the internet. Previously I had to drag in my laptop if I wanted to do work online during office hours.
Anyhoo, my postings have been sporadic of late, and I really, really, really need to get a new post up at BlogHer. I'm feeling very academically AWOL, to borrow Academic Coach's term from her Inside Higher Ed article. It's not so much that I want to ignore blogging as that I'm crazy busy with the dissertation. I want to have an entire draft done in a month. Eeeeek! I'm making some progress on The Chapter That STILL Refuses To Be Completed, and upon reviewing my earlier chapters, I realized two still have sections to be written. Plus one more chapter plus the conclusion. I've already missed my first of the cannot-blow-these deadlines, but it's not for lack of trying, I assure you.
Time management wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't taken on a new class this quarter, an upper-division course on the 1890s in American Studies. It has 35 students enrolled, though last class maybe 25 showed up--on the second day of class. That doesn't bode well, so I'll have to chastise them today. My problem as an instructor is that I come off as very laissez-faire and easygoing, and then bam! the students get grades back on their first assignments, and suddenly I'm a hardass in their view. So: added to my chastising today will be a warning not to misread my laid-back nature as me not caring about the class.
Quite the opposite is true: I've spent more time prepping for this class than for any course in a long, long time. It's mostly because--and I know this is silly, since I could have picked ANY decade as the focus of this course--I know very little about the 1890s when it comes down to it. Culture, yes. History, no. But it's very hard to teach students about everyday life without tossing in a bit of the ol' history. This week I've taken them on a whirlwind tour of business, labor, and industry. I knew quite a bit about corporate life, tenement sweat shops, and women's work going in, but just about nothing about industrial labor issues.
So I've been reading about mining. Ugh. There's a depressing livelihood. When President Dumbleyou says we need immigrants to do jobs that American citizens won't do, I wonder what those jobs might be. I mean, Americans MINE COAL. There can't be many jobs much worse than that, right? (Obviously I'm being a bit flippant. I've had migrant worker students who picked onions and strawberries next to their parents, and I know that's back-breaking work with very little remuneration. I imagine slaughterhouse work can't be very fun, either.)
I'm also torn about the way I'm managing this course. It's an upper-division course, something I have previously only taught during summers, during which terms classes tend to be small and intimate. But suddenly I have to convey a depth of content to as many as 40 students. Worse, we're in a class with the desks affixed to the ground, so students can't effectively work in small groups without someone wrenching her back. And I dislike lecturing; I can be an engaging lecturer, but writing my notes and finding images and music takes soooo much prep time and energy that I should be investing in my dissertation, and I'm not sure it always pays off in terms of student learning.
So I'm thinking about lecturing on Mondays for 45 minutes or so, following up with an hour of small group work (a fun activity--this past Monday it was analyzing the material culture of offices in the 1890s: chairs, desks, dictaphones, and typewriters based on photos and old advertisements) based on lecture and the reading for that day. And then on Wednesdays I'll have students do exclusively small-group work based on all the reading and lecturing done to date. Wednesday small-group work may include an activity like the one described above, but mostly will focus on a series of questions I'll hand out. That should help them prep for their midterm and final, and maybe get the gears turning for their research papers and blog entries.
OK, this has been rambling, and I suppose mostly a way for me to think through my current craziness. Once I get a bit more of the dissertation out of the way, I should be able to write some quality posts.
BONUS TRIVIA: Anyone know where the term "bureaucratic red tape" comes from? I discovered one answer to this in my research for the 1890s course this week. I found it interesting because it explained one inefficient archival method I ran across during my research at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Share your thoughts in the comments, and I'll come back to tell you what I found. Hint: manila folders made this method of archiving papers obsolete.
I'm such a nerd.
Anyhoo, my postings have been sporadic of late, and I really, really, really need to get a new post up at BlogHer. I'm feeling very academically AWOL, to borrow Academic Coach's term from her Inside Higher Ed article. It's not so much that I want to ignore blogging as that I'm crazy busy with the dissertation. I want to have an entire draft done in a month. Eeeeek! I'm making some progress on The Chapter That STILL Refuses To Be Completed, and upon reviewing my earlier chapters, I realized two still have sections to be written. Plus one more chapter plus the conclusion. I've already missed my first of the cannot-blow-these deadlines, but it's not for lack of trying, I assure you.
Time management wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't taken on a new class this quarter, an upper-division course on the 1890s in American Studies. It has 35 students enrolled, though last class maybe 25 showed up--on the second day of class. That doesn't bode well, so I'll have to chastise them today. My problem as an instructor is that I come off as very laissez-faire and easygoing, and then bam! the students get grades back on their first assignments, and suddenly I'm a hardass in their view. So: added to my chastising today will be a warning not to misread my laid-back nature as me not caring about the class.
Quite the opposite is true: I've spent more time prepping for this class than for any course in a long, long time. It's mostly because--and I know this is silly, since I could have picked ANY decade as the focus of this course--I know very little about the 1890s when it comes down to it. Culture, yes. History, no. But it's very hard to teach students about everyday life without tossing in a bit of the ol' history. This week I've taken them on a whirlwind tour of business, labor, and industry. I knew quite a bit about corporate life, tenement sweat shops, and women's work going in, but just about nothing about industrial labor issues.
So I've been reading about mining. Ugh. There's a depressing livelihood. When President Dumbleyou says we need immigrants to do jobs that American citizens won't do, I wonder what those jobs might be. I mean, Americans MINE COAL. There can't be many jobs much worse than that, right? (Obviously I'm being a bit flippant. I've had migrant worker students who picked onions and strawberries next to their parents, and I know that's back-breaking work with very little remuneration. I imagine slaughterhouse work can't be very fun, either.)
I'm also torn about the way I'm managing this course. It's an upper-division course, something I have previously only taught during summers, during which terms classes tend to be small and intimate. But suddenly I have to convey a depth of content to as many as 40 students. Worse, we're in a class with the desks affixed to the ground, so students can't effectively work in small groups without someone wrenching her back. And I dislike lecturing; I can be an engaging lecturer, but writing my notes and finding images and music takes soooo much prep time and energy that I should be investing in my dissertation, and I'm not sure it always pays off in terms of student learning.
So I'm thinking about lecturing on Mondays for 45 minutes or so, following up with an hour of small group work (a fun activity--this past Monday it was analyzing the material culture of offices in the 1890s: chairs, desks, dictaphones, and typewriters based on photos and old advertisements) based on lecture and the reading for that day. And then on Wednesdays I'll have students do exclusively small-group work based on all the reading and lecturing done to date. Wednesday small-group work may include an activity like the one described above, but mostly will focus on a series of questions I'll hand out. That should help them prep for their midterm and final, and maybe get the gears turning for their research papers and blog entries.
OK, this has been rambling, and I suppose mostly a way for me to think through my current craziness. Once I get a bit more of the dissertation out of the way, I should be able to write some quality posts.
BONUS TRIVIA: Anyone know where the term "bureaucratic red tape" comes from? I discovered one answer to this in my research for the 1890s course this week. I found it interesting because it explained one inefficient archival method I ran across during my research at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Share your thoughts in the comments, and I'll come back to tell you what I found. Hint: manila folders made this method of archiving papers obsolete.
I'm such a nerd.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Mr. Trillwing
In our little family, Mr. Trillwing sees himself as a "drain on the ticket." On the one hand, he feels a good deal of shame about this possibility, but on the other, he's willing to share this conclusion with just about anyone who inquires about our family. Such conversations usually play out in such a way that Mr. Trillwing gets to point out that I'm the smart one in the relationship and that he's just along for the ride.
Uh huh. Whatever. We do joke that someday we'll have stationery printed up that says "Trillwing, Ph.D., and Mr. Trillwing, G.E.D." But ees joke. Beeeeeg joke. After all, he has his high school diploma. ;)
Things you should know:
The thing is, I have a damn hard time convincing him of these facts. Which is funny: he managed to convince me that I'm no longer the sad little excuse for an adolescent girl that I was in the eyes of my K-12 peers--a caricature of myself that I bought into for much of my life. Yet I can't convince him that he's no longer the guy he was 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
See, because of events in his childhood, Mr. Trillwing has developed a lot of buttons that shouldn't be pushed, lest I want to deal with the consequences for several days. I avoid pushing them, but bringing a baby into our lives, with the attendant sleep deprivation and constant distraction, has meant some of those buttons get pressed anyway. Mr. Trillwing sees his reactions--depression, frustration, a bit of anger--to this stress as his fault. When he feels these emotions, he believes they define him, as they might have done when he was younger. He mistakenly believes, I think, that if he was a "real" man he would be better able to control his emotions--that is, not express them.
If I had wanted to marry the Marlboro Man, I would have married the Marlboro Man. Instead, I chose Mr. Trillwing, and I'm thrilled--THRILLED--that such a sensitive, empathetic, talented, lovely man chose me. I only wish that my dissertation were done so that I wouldn't be such a big drain on the ticket.
Uh huh. Whatever. We do joke that someday we'll have stationery printed up that says "Trillwing, Ph.D., and Mr. Trillwing, G.E.D." But ees joke. Beeeeeg joke. After all, he has his high school diploma. ;)
Things you should know:
Mr. Trillwing is far, FAR more intelligent than I am. He's friggin' brilliant. His IQ, to borrow from a bumper sticker, could beat up my honors student IQ. I wish my mind were so nimble.
Mr. Trillwing is many orders of magnitude more productive than I am. As a writer, he's ahead of me by hundreds of pages--probably closer to a thousand by now. That's just in the time we've been together, and it doesn't count all the visual work he does on top of his writing.
Mr. Trillwing is the primary breadwinner for this family, earning several times what sad little grad student me earns each year. All his hard work and talent keep us afloat.
Mr. Trillwing is a damn fine dad.
Mr. Trillwing is an excellent life partner. I couldn't ask for anyone better.
The thing is, I have a damn hard time convincing him of these facts. Which is funny: he managed to convince me that I'm no longer the sad little excuse for an adolescent girl that I was in the eyes of my K-12 peers--a caricature of myself that I bought into for much of my life. Yet I can't convince him that he's no longer the guy he was 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
See, because of events in his childhood, Mr. Trillwing has developed a lot of buttons that shouldn't be pushed, lest I want to deal with the consequences for several days. I avoid pushing them, but bringing a baby into our lives, with the attendant sleep deprivation and constant distraction, has meant some of those buttons get pressed anyway. Mr. Trillwing sees his reactions--depression, frustration, a bit of anger--to this stress as his fault. When he feels these emotions, he believes they define him, as they might have done when he was younger. He mistakenly believes, I think, that if he was a "real" man he would be better able to control his emotions--that is, not express them.
If I had wanted to marry the Marlboro Man, I would have married the Marlboro Man. Instead, I chose Mr. Trillwing, and I'm thrilled--THRILLED--that such a sensitive, empathetic, talented, lovely man chose me. I only wish that my dissertation were done so that I wouldn't be such a big drain on the ticket.
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