Back to the Grind

There really is something slightly melancholy about the four o'clock hour in the winter.

It's the way the light's slanting and filtering through the grey.

It's the way you can feel the chill coming back into the air after the sun from the afternoon.

Or maybe it's the solitary drive back home, listening to sad love songs after dropping one of your best friends off at the airport, not knowing when you'll see her again.

Da-now-now-now. I got the blues.

Tonight there will be celebrations

Tonight, I went to a bar called the Red Door in Portsmouth, for a drink with Emma and Ollie and several friends before the two leave for England tomorrow.

We were lucky enough for it to be a Monday night, and every Monday night at the Red Door is live music night, and Tristan, the man in charge of booking, always manages to find the best bands.

I suggest you all check out The Caravan of Thieves, which I'd like to call a mixture of gypsy circus music. They are fantastic.

An Open Letter to Comcast

Dear Comcast,

I just spent the last hour pressing the "Try Again" button on my computer, and waiting for the same screen to load again, so that I could finally update my blog and finish grading my student papers. An hour.

I would really appreciate it if you could figure the internet out. I mean, it's kind of what you're there for.

Okay thanks bye.

Phone Conversation, Last Night, in my Lulus, on the Couch:

Me: Hello?
Hobbes: Ashley?
Me: Yeah! How are you?!
Hobbes: Good. Ummm...do you still live on the East Coast?
Me: Uh, yeah. Why?
Hobbes: I'm down at the Barley Pub, actually, which I think is right where you are?
Me: Ha! Yeah, Ian and I will be there in 20.


And so ensued a lovely few hours over a glass of wine with Hobbes, whom I have not seen in almost one year. His dreads are almost a foot longer, I think, then I remember.

The Morning After (not the pill)

Growing up in a household of seven people with no dishwasher meant that Thanksgiving night left not a dry or clean kitchen towel in the entire house. We baked and we baked and we cooked and we cooked. And, thanks to insistent parental admonishments, we cleaned while we cooked--periodically, every time a mess was made, every time a spilled happened, every time we finished a dish, we cleaned.

After dinner, we washed all the dishes almost immediately, taking it in turns to get all the forks and knives and plates clean for the round of desserts. The process was then repeated. We had it down. We had a schedule tacked to the fridge.

I should have made a schedule. I am now taking a break from washing glasses. Just the glasses! Of course, my family never had a Thanksgiving meal of 14, so...

Friendsgiving was a resounding success, at any rate. I've mentioned before that nearly everyone I know in this program is an avid cook, and no meal can better demonstrate that than yesterday's Thanksgiving feast. Turkey (by the way: always brine the turkey. Man!), gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, The Best Pecan Pie Ever, my apple sausage stuffing, hashbrown casserole, homemade rolls, and more and more and more. Which is why today, I am eating only grapefruit and drinking only green tea in between my cleaning and cooking breaks.

I mean, I've gotta be ready to do this again in just over 24 hours. Thanksgiving, Round 2.

Gobble.

(yes, it counts.)

Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust

The best adjective to pair with the word wheat is "luscious" and when I think of the word "hot," I think "boy scouts."

Sometimes all you need is a round or two of Apples to Apples, a gin and tonic, and a pumpkin pie in the oven.

Six Hours and Counting

Just six hours of a work/school combo and 400 words of a paper proposal separate me from a cup of tea, pajamas, a movie, and a wonderful start to a long Thanksgiving weekend.

Of course, Thanksgiving weekend will include copious amounts of baking, reading for school, 22 student papers, paper preparation, and guest entertainment, but at least I can do it all while wearing slippers and an apron.

At least there's that.

White Winter Hymnal

Yesterday was spent in Portsmouth with Emma, Alice, and Ollie, "popping into shops" and wandering from coffee shop to restaurant to coffee shop, trying to stay warm by coveting the sweaters in windows.

Alice and I made the mistake of wearing tights and dresses, and we realized that the weather has made its decision. It's only been the past week, but it is now way, way too cold to wander around in anything less than an eskimo parka.

From Facebook and a lovely cell phone picture of Kili all bundled up, I've gathered that it is snowing back home. I can just see Bellingham covered in snow, that yellowish glow that lights up the sky at night and allows drunk college students to sled late into the night. I can see Red Square as it is when the snow starts to fall, before anyone else is outside and there's only your own footprints leading into the middle of the fountain. I can see Ian's parents' cars at the bottom of their treacherous driveway, anticipating the sheet of ice that will cover it in the next few days. I can see Clementine's little footprints on the balcony the first time she ever saw snow, hesitant and leading to her hiding place under Seamus's old silver chair.

I thought that in moving to New England I would be moving somewhere where snow is more common, but we haven't gotten a flake yet this season, despite it being below freezing come nightfall. I suppose I shouldn't be too jealous. I suppose I shouldn't complain. Once it starts snowing here, it won't stop. We'll have cold and snow for months and months, and it will melt down to those awful snowbanks on the sides of the road that are dirty and solid packed ice.

But I've always held that if it's going to be this cold anyway, it might as well snow. If I'm walking around in boots and heavy coats, I at least want it to be a damn winter wonderland outside, otherwise I'm just freezing cold for no good reason.

Even the Moon is Bigger in America

The posts for the next few days might be lacking. I'm too busy sorting out the difference between Wotsits and Cheez-it, and explaining what Cracker Jack is.

On a side note, America really is big. Even the moon.

Twofer

Then again, sometimes five minutes after you post a slightly melancholic post about your morning, you find the most intelligent and eloquent idea for your paper ever.

It is going to be a great week.

Some Days...

Some days it takes two tries to poach an egg.

It's been a "I've just cleaned my house, and mopped my floors, and Clementine just walked all over the clean surfaces of tables and tea carts with her wet cat litter paws" kind of morning. A "I'm tired and I know I only have a few hours in which to do research but I can't motivate myself to crack one more book" kind of morning.

But my latte turned out beautifully, the sun is shining, and in a few hours, I am driving south to Boston to have lunch with my sister and pick up Emma from the airport--Emma, whom I have not seen in 18 months. It's going to be a good week.

Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter

MAN! I'm too sad about Dobby and too excited about the insanity of Bellatrix Lestrange a la Helena Bonham Carter to say anything worthwhile.

Can't wait for the second go-round.

On Writing...Wait, did I just plagiarize Stephen King?

Last night, I went to Ballard's, a bar in Durham, after work, to meet Ian and another MFA student and study. What? Sometimes I need a Bloody Mary when I plan class.

When Ian and Caro had left to go teach their 401 classes (yes, they both had just planned them the hour beforehand. Over wine and a beer), I stayed behind to linger over Edith Wharton's Twilight Sleep (what I like about 1920s literature is the way the authors all just stopped their stories. Not ended. Just stopped.)

I had been there about an hour when the novel writing class, composed of MFA fiction writers and Andrew, a poet, came in, together with their professor, their bookbags, and assorted papers.

They then proceeded to take over my table (the large wooden one near the fireplace) and have class.

It was a very interesting experience for me, seeing a workshop in the MFA program. I've never really seen what the MFAers do in their classes, nor read much of what they write. Gradually, and inevitably, my interest turned to envy. AND THEN MY ENVY TURNED TO HATE. Okay not really. Mostly just envy.

They had class in a bar! And had beers! And fun! And all class was was giving the writer advice about how to make her story better, and asking her questions they thought needed clarification in her novel's structure!

What. The. Hell.

I've never had class in a bar. I've never had a beer in class. Not that I'd want to, but a glass of wine might be nice.

You know what else might be nice? Writing a story--or a creative non-fiction essay, maybe?--for class every other week, instead of teaching myself phenomenology and cranking out a 20 page paper in two weeks.

I have degree envy.

What I'm Looking Forward to

Because I am generally in a tizzy these days about time and schedules and how much I have to do in terms of schoolwork before December 18th, I thought it would do me well to make a list of the things that I am looking forward to in the next few weeks. Because, not only will this remind me that I am doing this for a reason, and that I am going to have so much fun soon, but also I just really love making lists.

one. Emma, a Englishwoman (haha) I met in France, is coming to visit this Saturday with her boyfriend.

two. Thanksgiving is next week, which means delicious food, wonderful company, and also time with Bailey the dog.

three. Harry Potter comes out this Friday.

four. I get to spend Christmas with Scarlet and Carl and Bailey the dog, and we are going skiing in Vermont. Which sounds so holiday-y.

five. Immediately after Christmas, I am so so grateful to be able to go back to Seattle, to spend two weeks amongst friends & family I didn't think I'd be able to see.

six. An opportunity to work on my thesis, which may or may not include Hemingway, generational make-ups, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom.

seven. New Years Eve with The Nest! We've never done that!

eight. A brief trip to the South, to visit Andrew. The South! I've never been there.

nine. A roadtrip from Tennessee to New Hampshire.

and ten. Snow and Christmas and baking and love and giving and cooking and feeling cozy.

I feel so, so much better. Y'all should try this. You have no idea.

Very Smart and Not Trite

Today, as I was working on a proposal for one of my papers, I sent a portion of it to Kili, and told her I was having issues because I felt it was trite.

And, to be honest, when one is writing about identity, one is apt to feel trite. Who am I? is perhaps one of the most cliche questions that can be asked.

When I sent her the revised version, however, she let me know that it was better, "very smart and not trite." And I decided that if I ever start an academic blog, it will be called "Very Smart and Note Trite" with a subtitle of "or at least trying to be." I think it's pretty apt, and what I'd like to be known for in my academics.

At the very least, I have a framework for how I'd like to approach my academics as a whole, which is more than I can say for my two papers I have to write before mid-December. That's forty pages. And who knows how many I have to read before then.

What I am struggling with right now is a lack of framework. This whole semester, I've been reading wonderful books and poems, and thinking hard about them. But what I haven't been doing is understanding these texts in terms of any theoretical framework.

Which is why I've spent the last few days holed up trying to understand what phenomenology is and how eidetic singularities and transcendent philosophy have anything at all to do with one another. Trying to figure out what those words even mean is already hard enough.

This being my first Masters degree (unlike Ian's second), I am unsure if this is because my program is lacking, or if I myself am lacking the initiative to go out and read Deleuze and Guattari on my own (here's looking at you, Chels).

Either way, I've got to get a chokehold on Heidegger before I can focus on being very smart and not at all trite.

Some Postman is Groovin'

Dear Heather,

I promise I will start an email to you tomorrow. I can't promise I will finish it, but I generally don't like leaving things unfinished for too long, so you can expect it shortly.

At the moment, I am gulping down soup, writing a blog post that shouldn't really count as part of my NaBloPoMo, as it is more of a personal letter, and tapping away at the keys furiously so that I can get back to piecing together an understanding of Phenomenology and Heidegger on my own (more about that issue to come, I'd wager). I've got two paper proposals and bibliographies to write in the next 10 days (one of which I haven't even begun to think about), 22 student papers sitting on my desk to grade, a class to plan for this Wednesday and Friday, and two out-of-country guests coming this Saturday for a ten day visit.

Needless to say, I'm swamped. But I'm making lists and ticking things off as quickly as possible. I've owed you an email for over two months now. And Tuesday, I promise that on Tuesday I will write one for you.

Love,

Ashley

Making Martha Proud

This year, I am hosting the Friendsgiving in NH, for those of us who live too far away from home to fly back for just a few days. Last year's was just a handful of us, but between the new MFA students and my English friends coming to visit, I think we're going to have a houseful.

While I may delight in cooking elaborate meals, I am a little nervous about Thanksgiving. I've never roasted a turkey before (do I brine it?! deep-fry it?! stuff it or cook the stuffing outside of it?!), nor have I had to coordinate such a large meal for so many people.

So I have, of course, made a spreadsheet, including invitees, the dish they are bringing, the drinks they are bringing, and the corresponding poundage of turkey I'll be required to provide.

Next thing you know I'll be fussing over place settings and buying napkin rings (I really want napkin rings).

Reflections of a Time-Starved Grad Student

A friend of mine in the Masters in Linguistics program here at UNH remarked recently that graduate school represents an incredibly unique and strange period in a person's life, because there is literally always something you could be doing.

This is not an exaggeration. No matter when in the semester, what time of day or day of the week--even on vacations, too--there is something I could, or even should, be doing that is school-related. I should be doing work right now. This very second.

Even the times when I am on top of my schoolwork, have all my papers graded, and have finished the week's readings, I should be doing research for my final papers, or preparing for my thesis in some way. I shouldn't be wandering the kitchen section of Goodwill, or perusing page after page on various fashion and kitchen blogs.

The thing is, though, we all need a little down time. I have recently spoken with two of my freshmen who are feeling overwhelmed with their coursework. Both complained that there just isn't enough time, that they feel completely cut off from their friends, and that they still aren't managing to get all of their work done.

My advice? Stop doing your homework. Make time to be social, to forget about your schoolwork for a few hours. And then, of course, get back into your damn dorm room and finish that response paper you owe me.

On that note, I'm off to have dinner with a friend. I need a break.

What I like about routine

What I like about routine is that once you start doing something everyday, it starts to become weird if you don't do it. Your body itches and you can feel your feet wondering when you haven't run, or your brain is constantly trying to figure out something to put on your blog.

It never really gets any easier, but it does become necessary.

War Stories

My grandfather was in World War II. He told us that he never killed anyone, and I think he was in the Aleutian Islands during the majority of the actual action in Europe.

I remember once, though, a story he told us from when he was driving trucks in Europe--I believe it was either Germany or France, and it must have been after things had quieted down a bit, at least in that part of the world.

They used to warm cans of food up on the engines of the trucks as they drove around, delivering supplies or what have you. Once, when they were driving around, they decided to heat up some food on the engine, as usual. Probably it was a can of beans.

This time, though, they forgot about it, and left it on the engine. Of course, it kept getting hotter and hotter, until eventually it exploded, bursting and ricocheting noise and beans all over the inside of the truck.

It being wartime, an explosion of any kind was probably terrifying, but once they found out that it was beans and not enemy fire, I'd wager they had a good laugh about it, while hosing down the inside of the truck's engine.

My grandpa used to wear a hat that said WWII Vet on it. It was dark blue and had gold lettering and I am proud of him.

Nice Things to Yell at Strangers

This summer, I was walking down Central Ave in Dover with Andrew, and a twenty-something man leaned out of his car window to yell something at us.

Ahem.

I should say, the man leaned out of his car window to yell something at Andrew, because what came out of his mouth was, "Your girlfriend is very beautiful!"

This was funny on multiple levels. It also ranks as the nicest catcall I have ever received.

Recently, I was driving in the car with Andrew and another twenty-something walked in front of us. Something about him was incredibly attractive, and we spent a few moments detailing exactly what we liked about him, from his jacket to his gait to the bag he was carrying. As we were driving away, Andrew yelled, "Hey! Hey! I like your deal!" and although the window was up and the fashionable young man probably heard nothing, we got to thinking about compliments from strangers.

There are creepy compliments from strangers, of course. Kili often gets, "I like your hair. You look exotic. Where are you from?" which is not only creepy but vaguely offensive. But what Andrew and I are interested in are the nice things that you can yell at strangers, the things that people will remember from months afterward because they were genuine and sincere, or sometimes because they were more polite than usual catcalls are.

Here's our plan:

Step 1. Start tumblr
Step 2. Write down nice things to yell at strangers
Step 3. PROFIT!

Confessions of a Masochistic English Major

One of my biggest secrets is what happens to me when I go to libraries or bookstores. I'll share it with you today because I'm feeling open, and also because it just happened to me and I'm too tired now to think of anything else to blog about.

The thing is, I overheat. I hyperventilate, and get faint, and out of breath, and sweaty, and I almost pass out. And I'm an English major. I have to go to the library or a bookstore fairly often. I mean, it's required. And nearly every single time, I leave feeling weak and exhausted from the ordeal.

Don't get me wrong, I like books. I love them. If I could curl up on top of a pile of books or sit on a thrones of books like the women from these photos, I totally would. It's not like being around books gives me hives or anything.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. I think that being around literally thousands of books I can't read and won't have time to ever read kind of stresses me out. And by kind of, I mean to the point where I feel flustered and faint and lightheaded.

It also might have something to do with the fact that I leave my library visits until the last minute, and end up hauling fifty pounds of books around in bags, while I stoop, rifle through the stacks, and walk endlessly back and forth trying to locate PS561.T78 2004.

You are all a lost generation.

I have been reading a lot of literature from the post World War I era recently--Wharton, Cather, Hemingway, and I'll be reading a Fitzgerald book soon as well.

The Sun Also Rises is set (so far) in Paris, and in Willa Cather's The Professor's House, the City of Lights maintains a shadowy background presence throughout the entire book. I miss Paris. And though I couldn't ever afford (or fit into) the Closerie des Lilas while I was in Paris, I still felt a vague and nostalgic longing for those ex-pats that spent their days together drinking whiskey and soda, wandering from bistro to bistro having jolly times, and writing passionately and haphazardly as the fancy struck them.

I whined to someone recently about how I wanted to be a part of that lost generation, spending my days in Paris amongst Americans who didn't want to be in America, and how it is a damnable sin that I was born too late, and decidedly in the wrong sort of society. I might not be able to smoke a cigarette (though, I suppose, if one never tries one never knows) but I can ruddy well handle my gin. Hemingway would have to like me on principle, I think.

The Ocean Breathes Salty, Revisited

Yesterday I went to the beach with Andrew, who writes poems, and watched the waves from inside his car.

It was cold, and grey, because it is almost winter, and the waves were crashing and violent and I wanted to be inside the ocean and be a part of it.

I had no idea that winter tides had so much more force and ferocity than summer tides, and I stared for a long while, mesmerized at the way the water crashed up on the rocks.

There were a handful of surfers out there, tumbling in the waves, little black specks bobbing up and down and occasionally popping up to ride the crest of a waves before it spread out too thin on the beach.

They looked so cold, and I thought about how the only time I have ever been comfortable enough in the frigid Atlantic Ocean to stay in it for longer than an invigoration three minutes was when the temperatures were in the 90s the first week of school this past September. I also thought about that sweet movie Point Break.

To Patrick Mahoney, on Your Birthday

Almost two weeks ago, a new MFA student who entered the poetry program this fall was struck by a car on a nighttime bike ride to his home on the coast of New Hampshire. He has since been in the hospital in a coma.

Today, he is 27 years old. Today, he should be attending a party being held in his honor (1/3 of it, I suppose, since we have a few birthdays around this time of year), and showing us some Irish dance steps, but he has not made it out of the ICU.

He has many more students to teach, many more poems to write, and a closetful (I'm assuming) of wonderful knits that I am looking forward to seeing this winter.

Just keep wiggling your big toe, Patrick.

Eavesdropping

Here is a conversation that I overheard on the third floor of Kingsbury Hall (which houses all of the engineering departments, as well as the mathematics departments), between two college boys playing ping pong ball:

Deep Thinker One: Do you think there is a rational explanation for why people do evil things?

Deep Thinker Two: A rational explanation? Because it's probable.

I just thought that was some food for thought. What a life it must be, to view the world rationally based on what you are studying in college. Mostly my college studies just made the world seem that much more irrational.

Let's Be Positive

I realize, in looking at my past two blog posts, that they have been rather...negative, shall we say? And, it being the month of November, which is not only

1. National Blog Posting Month
2. National Pomegranate Month
and
3. National Novel Writing Month

but also the month of Thanksgiving, I thought I needed to change things up. It is a time, of course, for being thankful and for being positive and loving instead of complaining about highlighters and herstories.

(As an interesting sidenote, in ninth grade I wrote a column for the school newspaper called "Rita's Rants & Raves." The nom de plume was to protect the innocent. I mostly just complained a lot, and once tried to write a "rave" to balance things out. It was a total and utter failure.)

A few people I know are updating their facebook statuses daily with something new they are thankful for each day, and while I refuse to spend all of NaBloPoMo listing things like "pumpkins," "kitchen blogs," and "hours under blankets watching movies," I will spend today telling you why I am most anxious to return home, and also why I am thankful for a home to return home to.

This morning before leaving for work, I put together this, which I intend to pair with this and some incredibly hard to come by--in New Hampshire anyway--corn tortillas. I am heading home after a long 8 hour day combination of school and class and shuttling back in forth with a delicious meal, and I will share it with a friend of mine, while I tutor him in French for his upcoming language exam. We will also drink a bottle of Nick Cage's uncle's wine, which was on sale at Hannaford yesterday, and it will be lovely.

And that, my friends, is what a wonderful day looks like. I might dread the remaining seven hours I have left on campus, but it will make walking into an apartment full of delicious ropa vieja even more satisfying, no?

Let Me Tell You a Little (Her)Story

Today, while doing the reading for my British poetry class, I was reading an essay by Meena Alexander, titled "The Poetics of Dislocation." I found the work to be fascinating, and intend on using it for my final paper for the course, but I was irked when I came across this sentence (And, as it occurred rather early on in the essay, I am actually quite surprised that I continued to read it...) :

"The new American poet thinks in many tongues, all of which flow into the English she uses: a language that blossoms for her."

What I dislike about this sentence, of course, is the pronouns "she" and "her" used in a general, impersonal fashion. To put it quite simply, that is just not how things are done, and it looks wrong. It feels wrong. My whole body jolts when I come across it in print. Now, I am a feminist. Let me make that clear. I do what I want. What infuriates me about such a usage is that language as a space is gendered in through the use of "she" or "her," and I adamantly argue that the use of the masculine pronoun is non-gendered in that context. Not only is it contrary to the forms and conventions of language to use the feminine pronoun in such as context, but I find it specifically sexist when one does so.

Because what lies implicitly in asserting the femininity of the non-gendered pronoun is that one agrees that language is a traditionally masculine space. I do not feel the need to claim a feminine space with language, but what I do feel the need to do is reclaim that space as gender neutral. Because it is.

Language isn't a masculine space and women don't need to make a space for themselves within it. The space is already there, because it is gender neutral. I suppose that a large part of my problem with such a usage of the feminine pronoun is that when women change the conventions of language to make it "woman's space" they look, to put it frankly, like fools. It represents a rebellion against conventional language in a way that signals nothing more than a perverse and onerous stubbornness. And I say that, not because it is stubborn for women to assert themselves, but because there is no reason to assert a feminine space in an already non-gendered one.

And that is just...superfluous. And ignorant. And self-defeating, as well.

Let's assume, for a moment, that the general "he" also signifies a white person, in addition to a male, and that language is considered a white masculine space

Do we then say "The new American poet thinks in many tongues, all of which flow into the English she, the Black woman, uses: a language that blossoms for her, a Black woman" ?

My point is that merely because the arenas of literature and thought have traditionally been male (and white, for that matter. Because let's be honest here.) does not mean that language as a rhetorical space is one that is masculine, or is one that needs to be reclaimed by the female voice. Herstory sounds just as stupid as placing the modifier "African-American" before each appearance of the word "person," in order to create a racially neutral space within a language.

Here's What it is Like to be in Grad School

Over the summer, I tried to read Infinite Jest, an immense novel by David Foster Wallace. It is much to my chagrin that I had to add the word "tried" there, and I don't think I really need to tell you that I also failed. I made it about halfway through before moving and weddings and school caught up with me. Someday, I hope to tackle it again, but there's a stack of Edith Wharton on my office desk and a fuzzy idea for a thesis in my head that needs to take precedence...

What I did read in Infinite Jest, however, included this masterful passage wherein DFW (yeah, I acronymed that shit. what?) lists the "many exotic new facts" that you will acquire when spending any amount of time around a "Substance-recovery halfway facility."

Some of the most memorable include "that certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do," "That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that," That loneliness is not a function of solitude," "That it is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people," and "That it is permissable to want."

I, in fact, have a portion of this list written out and tacked to the wall in my office, and as I was looking at the list, I thought this:

That David Foster Wallace's list of things you learn in rehab might be just as aptly titled "What you learn in graduate school," as long as he includes this addition: That it is pure arrogance to follow the statement "I know I am talking a lot" with the word "but..."

I have since decided, too, that another important addition would be: "that some people still do use highlighters, despite the fact that you think it looks like a high-schooler is sitting next to you in seminar class."

Doin' It Right

I realized tonight, at 10 pm at trivia, when asked a question that referred to National Novel Writing Month, that it is also NaBloPoMo.

"Shit!" I thought, and ran home to blog post.

Readers, welcome to the best month of the YEAR.