NaBloPoMo

Apparently November is the month you're supposed to blog once a day? Yellow, we had it way wrong. January and February worked just fine for us.

This has been so hard. I do have to apologize for some of the posts; they were, as one of my sisters said, "scrappy." But I did it. Even with no power for three days, I did it. Twenty-eight little posts, all in a row.

I could wax poetic, but I think I've done that enough this past month. Stay tuned for further adventures in the month of March.

Wherefore art thou Othello?

Contrary to popular belief, the term 'wherefore' in early Elizabethan English did not mean 'where' but 'why'? Why are you Romeo, not where. Why, Othello, why??

I have spent the past few days digging (in the dark, no less. Power's still not on and I'm at a friends using electricity at the moment. Lord, I attract high winds wherever I go, it seems) through archives of research on Othello and I am not done yet. 'Race' and 'Othello' is far too broad a topic, and yet here I am, reading essay after essay about the rhetorical usage of Moor versus Black in early modern English.

I am elbow deep in critical response, and I am nowhere near the end. Good lord I need spring break like a fat kid needs cake.

A Wicked Nor'Eastah

Last night we had a wicked powaful sto-ahm, and the power's out all over New Hampshire, and several surrounding states.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the zombie apocalypse. I'm using a flickering of power to write this. I might be gone by tomorrow. I love you.

Listing

-Sometimes in my office I use my webcam to make sure my hair looks okay. Some people might say I should invest in a mirror.

-Existentially speaking, I think I am in crisis mode right now. Critically speaking, I think academics like to call it post-modernity.

-It's been raining for three days, and these silly Northeasterners don't know what to do. I keep trying to tell them that this is what winter is like.

-While I don't believe that the world will be changed by the use of 'she' or 'her' as a gender neutral pronoun, I do believe the world can be changed by a good chicken pot pie. Or a fresh baked loaf of bread. Take your pick.

-I was recently described as the "Jane Goodall of male interaction" by another poet friend. These poets have such fascinating ways of being and thinking in this world.

-I would like, at the very least, an herb garden this summer.

-There aren't enough hours in the day, which is why I have come to terms with the fact that ice cream for dinner is okay sometimes.

-I do, in fact, realize that this isn't a "real" blog post, and is just a list of things that popped into my head. It doesn't make them any less important.

Tender is the night

Yesterday, I was walking down the street with my poet friend Jenny, and we stopped at a tattoo parlor. I have been wanting another for a while, and wanted to talk about dates and prices and feasibility.

An hour later, I had a tattoo. I suppose it's fitting that I just...got it. That I walked in and came out a brief period of time later with permanent ink etched into my skin.

It reads "tender is the night," which the tattoo artist thought was some allusion to a Blur song, but in actuality is the title of my favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald book, and a line from the poem "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats. It's about vulnerability. It's about the ephemeral, which is hilarious, because it's one of three indelibly permanent things in my life.

Everybody has a weakness. Mine is a sucker punch to the gut or a compliment on my cooking. Fitzgerald's was a good martini and Zelda. Keats' was opium and feelings ("Oh for a life of feeling rather than thought!"). Remembering that we, as the night, are weak and tender and fallible, is what keeps us humble, what keeps us human.

Chelsea says that now that I have a literary tattoo, I need to get my PhD, otherwise I'll just be a dork with a nerdy literary tattoo. I think that I might still be just a dork with a nerdy literary tattoo once I have my PhD. I'll just have a fancy graduation gown too.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
 But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

Summertime and the livin's easy.

Yesterday felt like spring. It was almost fifty degrees, and the sun was shining and I was wearing a light coat and sunglasses, and although there was not much green I could feel it trying to come out from behind the whites and browns of a New Hampshire winter.

I woke up this morning to grey skies and flurries, to a forecast of at least ten days of snow, and cold weather yet again.

I miss the summer. I miss skirts and shorts and tank tops, I miss browned skin and barbecues. I miss warmth--heat, even--and sunshine on my head and cold drinks and late nights waiting for it to cool down.

I've planned a summer party for this weekend, for our writer friends in New Hampshire. We are turning the heat up and wearing summer dresses, making Mexican food and drinking mojitos. It's not quite July, but it will do for now.

Black to the future...SW Texas Pop Culture Conference Part II

I have found the topic for the paper I plan to present at next year's Popular Culture Conference. Last night, after making a chicken pot pie and watching Ian and a poet play rockband, we put in the movie Blacula, which Ian had received as a Christmas present from his brother.

Something about othering, about post-coloniality, about worlding? Perhaps struggling through that Spivak article will pay off after all...What does Blacula say about the culture that produced it? How do Blacksploitation films reflect the cultural and political unconscious of the time period, and what does our viewing of it say about today's culture?

His bite was outta sight, indeed.

If I were a writer, a writer a fiction, I'd tell you a story to remember.

On Friday night, Ian and I went to see Shutter Island at the late showing. We drove home at one in the morning, in the bitter cold, down Dover Point Road, past farms and used car dealerships and seafood restaurants with lobsters on their signs.

We passed a car wash, and I looked over, and saw an old man washing his car at one in the morning, in the 25 degree New Hampshire air, with snow on the ground.

If I were a writer, I could tell you his story. I would, no doubt, be influenced by the psychological thriller I had just seen, and the story would involve murder, intrigue, betrayal, violence, and perhaps adventure. Why else would he be washing his car at one in the morning?

I'm no writer, though, so instead I'll let the old man alone, and let him spray his car down in peace.

There's Rain on the Ocean

I drove to Rye Beach today, and looked at the ocean in front of me, and all I wanted, all I could see, all I could think about, was the sun setting over the water.

I want so badly to see the ocean lit up with the sun, to see the way the waves play with the light and to watch as that light slowly fades into nighttime and stars and dark clouds.

Call me sentimental, but there's nothing like a sunset over Bellingham Bay in the summertime.

The verb is 'confer,' not 'conference.'

First of all, I must say that I am writing this post at a coffee shop, and that fact almost makes me want to vomit. (sorry, Joanne. I've been drinking tea, I promise.) So hip. So scene. So mod. There are even people staring at me, for blogging in a coffee shop. The switch to a word document has been made.

Anyway.

A week later, I can sit down and finally blog about the SW Texas Pop Culture Conference. A. Week. Later. This past week has been spent in a furious haze of playing catch-up, on everything but sleep, unfortunately. Missing a week of graduate school, it turns out, is kind of a big deal. But the conference itself was well worth it. I dorked out with people who also dork out about the same things I do, and listened to academic papers on Battlestar Galactica or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog. I went to a panel on Allen Ginsberg, a panel on zombies, a mixed genre reading, a panel on forbidden sexuality (I haven’t heard the term MILF so many times in succession in my life…) and just listened. I am not sure that I learned much, but I listened. And thought. And it was nice.

I met a few people the night after I presented who are graduate students at Sam Houston State, and we stuck together for the most part after that. It was nice to have people to eat with, at the very least, and I think they are really the only reason I ever ventured out of the hotel. I am glad I did, because I ended up really liking Albuquerque. It has this weird southwestern charm, in its sky and its buildings and its mountains and its shops.

A few highlights, in no particular order:

Finding a Greek restaurant that actual Greek people eat at.

Walking in to a magic shop on the chance that it would be like a Goosebumps story, and having the married couple offer to buy us sodas and show us coin and card tricks.

Exploring a Day of the Dead shop, and touching hundreds of small, brightly colored objects made of clay and metal.

Listening to a Japanese man present on the graphic language in Allen Ginsberg’s poetry.

The Alabaman woman who accosted me at the hotel bar, to tell me (for a full twenty minutes) all the flaws and fallacies found within the paper I had presented (she had actually walked OUT during my presentation), and told me all this while I ate my lunch and drank my bloody mary.

The Area Chairwoman for the Myth and Fairytale Panel, who the next day told me that my paper was excellently done, and that I had applied Vladimir Propp’s theories excellently.

The woman who, before the keynote speaker address, recognized me, and complimented me on my paper and my presentation.

Suck it, Freudian scholar from Alabama.

A full, $7, Mexican meal in the Albuquerque airport, better than any Mexican food I have had in months.

If I had....

On a drive to Target recently, a poet friend of mine said, "If I had unlimited money, I would buy a new razor every day." I thought it odd, but he actually might be on to something. Think about that edge!

I realized something on my flight to Albuquerque last week. I read a twenty page theoretical article by Gayatri Spivak, a post-colonial theorist who makes no attempts to move away from the esoteric, and understood it almost immediately.

This is no small feat. I struggle with Spivak. I'm reading back over the article now, and cannot for the life of me grasp that understanding I had on the plane. I am led to one conclusion, and one conclusion only.

Planes are the best place to do homework. Ever.

Since I've already betrayed my unabashed love for Lost, I do not feel too embarrassed to think that if only I, too, had received unlimited mileage from Oceanic Airlines, I would be the smartest. person. ever.

Now who's gonna pay for my flights so that I can graduate from this Masters program?

The French Word for Scar is Cicatrice

I think cicatrice is a much more beautiful word than scar. The word scar sounds harsh and painful, like the wound that made it, not like the healed up marks that remain. Cicatrice sounds soothed, with a memory of the harshness and nothing else, closed up on either side with a soft s sound. Left open at one end, the English word feels incomplete, raw, still part wound, open flesh.

I like the succinctness of the word cicatrice, the feeling it gives that the wound is over, healed. It is complete. But it is still there. Between those soft closed s's there is still a hard guttural to stop the tongue up, a post-dental stop to push past, and a lateral glide to push through before the scar closes fully.

Almost seven months ago, when I picked up my life and shoved it into boxes to travel 3000 across this country, I also tried to put my cat in a box to take her with me. I picked her up, tucked her legs against me, and tried to shove her in before she noticed what I was doing. Her back leg thrashed out, creepy cat toes and claws spread wide, and she dragged two of her claws down my chest.

When I got her in the carrier, I folded a paper towel into my dress, and began my trip across America. The scratches healed--probably before I arrived in New Hampshire--but the scars still remain. Two long curved white lines on my chest, seven months later. Closed up, like a cicatrice, not like scar. Completed, but still there.

House Hunting

I am searching craigslist for apartments for next year. I'd like some place with a loft, exposed brick, sunny exposure, and overhead lighting. Counter space is a necessity, a dishwasher a luxury, and a washer/dryer a must. I would sincerely appreciate heat and hot water included in the rent, as there is not much greater than wearing tanktops indoors while it snows outside.

A balcony would be nice, even though I won't be allowed a barbecue. Preferably, the balcony should get a lot of sun, for reading and an herb garden. I love built-in cupboards and shelving units, and I won't say no to odd angles and lines. Odd-shaped windows are a plus.

I like color in my apartment, although I know this is difficult to find. Red walls, or shutters might be nice. Perhaps a painted door?

Ideally, I'd like the apartment to be near train tracks or some body of water, within walking distance to a downtown area. Oh, and they must allow cats. I should write a personal ad for the Stranger.

Oh wait, I live in New Hampshire.

Again with the recycling?

If you'll remember back to last year, when I complained about the recycling situation in France, you might not want to read this one. It will seem redundant. Deja vu? Perhaps.

Last week, Ian and I took our garbage and recycling out, only to find the absence of the recycling containers. They have not reappeared. In fact, it seems that they will not reappear, as our property management company has recently switched garbage collection...alliances? (I have no idea what to call that relationship...) The current garbage collectors do not, apparently, "support" recycling.

How do you not "support" recycling? And how does a property management company that prides itself on being green sign up for business with a garbage collection company that clearly and emphatically does not?

Green, my ass, California Property Management. I just threw 5 aluminum cans into the garbage can and part of me died inside. Between France and New Hampshire, I'm not sure how much Northwest will be left in me by the time I'm back.

Oh my god, (I'm) back again!

I got in to New Hampshire late last night after almost missing a connection and having the airline lose my luggage. The conference was amazing, and soon I'll tell you about it, I'm sure. But for now, I am going to make cupcakes and watch Evil Dead with friends.

It's not quite a $2.69 Boomer's burger, but it will do for now.

Frozen Over

The Cocheco River, which runs through the town of Dover, New Hampshire, is frozen over. It will stay that way--barring natural disasters and global warming--until sometime in March or April. I've never lived in a place where puddles stayed frozen the entire winter, let alone rivers and lakes larger than Lake Washington.

It's strange to pass over the river and see solid ice, with old snow resting on top. I want, one of these nights, to climb over the guardrail, down the embankment, slide out into the middle of the river, and lay down on the ice, Eternal Sunshine-style. With my luck, the ice wouldn't be solid and I'd fall in, so I might hold off on that one...

This picture, by the way, is not of the Cocheco River. I was not the photographer. It might not even be in New Hampshire, for all I know. Do you really expect me to walk a mile in 20 degree weather, just to take a picture of a damn frozen river?

What has ceased to amaze me is that the world doesn't stop in the wintertime here. The river is frozen over, and the temperature hasn't been above freezing since my return, but people are out. Life moves on, and people buy groceries and go on runs. College students trudge to class and go on drunken walks in the cold. Packages are delivered, and dinner gets made and homework gets done. In this cold, all I want to do is sleep. I want to hibernate away the winter in a cocoon of blankets and pajamas, with a few good books, maybe.

There's a short story by Anthony Doerr called "The Hunter's Wife," and the hunter and his wife trudge into the woods one winter and find a hibernating bear. They touch his fur, and listen to his deep and slow breathing. I imagine if I slept away the winter, someone would come into my apartment and listen to my breath while I waited for the snows and rivers to melt. I think that might be a little more creepy than the Doerr story, though.

Kindling the fire of my shame...

Last weekend, while preparing for my trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico for this conference, I realized that I had neglected to purchase a copy of Aristotle's Poetics for my Adaptations of Othello class. Not wanting to spend the time or money in purchasing a copy at the UNH bookstore or the Durham book exchange (equivalent to the AS Bookstore and the College Store, for all the Bellinghamsters out there), I swallowed my pride.

I asked Ian, with much hesitation and a lump in my throat, to download Poetics on the Kindle, so that I could read it on the plane.

He did. And now, here I am in Albuquerque, with this infernal machine on the bedside table in my hotel. I feel as if I've committed a personal affront to Aristotle. A personal affront to all of the many thousands of monks that spent their lives copying and binding manuscripts. A personal affront to Shakespeare, to Wilde, to Fitzgerald.

I think I might throw up.

Doppelganger

A few weeks ago was, apparently, celebrity doppelganger week on facebook. I don't think I look like any celebrity, although a friend once told me I looked like the White Witch from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (compliment? I think not) but I can sure do a mean Margot Tenenbaum.It's in the eyes, I think.

Now our feature presentation...

Well, I did it. I presented my first paper. I did not throw up. I did not pass out. I did not go over the time limit. No one threw anything at me, or asked me mean questions that I couldn't answer.

I'm not entirely sure I made myself understood, though. Quizzical looks throughout and a lack of questions directed towards me after only served to enhance this suspicion.

Luckily, I am not required to add "no one understood my paper" to the new entry on my Curriculum Vitae.

Jetsetting

You know that new movie, Up in the Air? Where George Clooney flies around the country in a business suit and snazzy rolling suitcase, sipping on cocktails in-flight? That's gonna be me.

I fly to Albuquerque today to present a paper at the Southwest Texas Popular Culture Conference. My paper is titled "Once Upon a Not so Unique Time: Reconciling Individualism and Literary Borrowing in Oscar Wilde's 'The Nightingale and the Rose'" and I refuse to bore you with a synopsis. Suffice it to say, I deconstruct structuralist fairytale theory. Still interested? Email me.

I feel so grown up. So professional. So terrified. Oh God, I am terrified.

I just hope I can get through the presentation without passing out. And that no one finds out that I probably don't know anything about Oscar Wilde, or fairytale theory, or deconstruction. Shit shit shit. Can I have one of those in-flight cocktails now, please?

Wa-wa-wa-wa-wander

I am feeling it again. That pull to somewhere else. To a new place. A new country. A new set of rules and codes and cultural niceties. A new language, perhaps. A change of pace from the daily American grind.

I browsed pictures of Brazil today, and the other night I found myself idly searching aupair.com--I found the perfect family just outside of Madrid. I feel pulled to India, to Thailand, to places I've hardly thought of and places where I would not be at home. There comes a time--and I think I've reached it--when clicking the next button on archived pictures of France no longer cuts it.

I'm thinking Taiwan next, or maybe Spain again. For now, on my measly TA salary, a weekend trip to Boston might have to suffice. Or a few days spent in beautiful Albuquerque! For now.

In the meantime, I'll settle for purgatory....

I think my own, personal hell might be a 20 minute walk in 20 degree weather, with a wind chill of 10 degrees, carrying the week's groceries in plastic bags over my shoulders and in my hands. Over and over again. In New Hampshire. Or anywhere frigid, I suppose.


Contrarily, and so I do not leave you with merely a complaint a day for the month of February, I have also contemplated my own, personal heaven. Dusk. Snowing. But temperatures above 32 degrees. A nice balmy 65. Warm enough for a swimsuit. Or at least cute clothes. Oh, and food. Of course.

A Mess, A Tangle

This is one organism. One. Look at all of those strings of being, tangled up together, intermingled and messy!

I am sitting here, procrastinating, struggling to find the connections between the Quarto and the Folio texts of Shakespeare's Othello. And I might be waxing a bit too poetic, but I am thinking about this jellyfish, and how it is just one big tangled mess, and there is no need to make any connections because it is all already connected. I highly doubt my professor would take that as a thesis for this presentation, however.

One last thought on jellyfish, before I return to untangling the mess of textual difference that is Shakespeare's words.

I am reminded of this past summer in Bellingham, when, during a trip to Clayton beach with some friends, we found a small jellyfish in the water. I'm usually one for poking marine animals with sticks, but I didn't want to puncture the jellyfish, so we held it in our hands, cupping it and a handful of saltwater, pouring more in from time to time as it leaked out of our hands.

What's my age again?

The other day, after taking attendance in my composition class, I realized I had been squinting the whole time. I put down my attendance list, and muttered, under my breath, of course, "No wonder I can't see you guys..." my voice trailing off at the end. I then began rummaging around in my giant purse for my glasses, put them on, and sighed, "that's better."

My students, the poor things, have no idea what to make of this absent-minded old woman in a 23 year old's body who is trying to teach them to write.

They're all a bunch of phoneys

J. D. Salinger's dead. So it goes. Yeah, yeah, I know that's Vonnegut, but I think it only appropriate. Firstly, I must apologize to the poor, angry old man who only wanted to be left alone. Salinger wouldn't want me to write this blog post, even though it is to commiserate, to bemoan the fact that all he wanted was to be left alone and look, just look, how people are not doing that. That's the catch-22 of this situation, I suppose. I can't comment, can't chide others without doing exactly what I am chiding for. Conundrum.

What I am most fascinated by in the aftermath of J.D. Salinger's death is the reworking of Holden Caulfield into some kind of hero, into some kind of role model. As something, anything, other than a lonely, sad, messed up kid who just needed someone to listen to him. Caulfield has been quoted, has been almost deified, into a symbol for...for exactly what, I am not sure. For angst. For loneliness. For wanderlust. For disillusionment. For the emo kids. For the high-schoolers who blog-post pictures of beautiful, heart-breaking people and places.

If you think about it, Holden Caulfield's "words of wisdom" are not words of wisdom. Of course they aren't. They never were meant to be. Salinger never meant them to be, and I think he would be horrified to see that they have been taken as such. But in a cynical way, his fierce diatribes against society and against all the phoneys, demonstrate and exemplify and resonate with real life. The emphasis, quite clearly, is on "in a cynical way".

For it is, in all actuality, true that when you tell people anything, you start missing everybody. The problem with Holden Caulfield is that he was unable--because he was a poor, confused, messed up kid--to see the beauty in that missing. He didn't see, as, perhaps, Salinger wanted his readers to see, that it would be worse to never tell anybody anything than it would be to start missing everybody once you did. So yes. Cynically speaking, don't ever tell anybody anything. You are sure to start missing everybody. But those moments of telling, those moments of closeness and of togetherness and love, are worth all the following moments of missing. They have to be.

Lost on me

When faced with the option of deciphering upwards of sixty odd pages of Said and Spivak's post-colonial theory or mindlessly watching three hours of a television show that has ceased to pretend--even to itself--that it makes sense, apparently I'll take the television.

Don't worry, folks: no spoilers here. You wouldn't even believe me if I tried to spoil it, to be honest. Polar bears? In the South Pacific? Really?

It seems odd and slightly shameful to--in the same week--witness the sad, premature end of one of the better-written shows on television (RIP Dollhouse) and also the season premier of a too-long running television show. According to Ian, who denigrated and derided me for my intense interest in Jersey Shore (fist pumps!), it is people like me--the people who watch the bad television--who force shows like Dollhouse off the air. If only I had watched Eliza Dushku kick more tush, and less Snooki getting socked in the face, Joss Whedon wouldn't be searching for airtime once more. I have news, Ian. It is people like us, in fact. You can't get yourself out of this one. It's people who can't get enough of Flavor of Love, it's people who devour four seasons of Lost in under 2 months.

I, for one, despite my inability to pull myself away from Evangeline Lilly's troubled eyes or Josh Holloway's strong chin, am relieved that this is the final season. I hate Lost. I can't stop watching it, but I know it isn't good television. I am still undecided if it would be worse to believe in Lost as good tv, or watch it knowing that it isn't. Either way, I'm there, knitting through the recap as well as the two hour long season premier.

And unlike last semester, with my marathon sessions of Madmen, I can't even pretend that last night's three hours were for homework. If Madmen was questionable in terms of academic potential, there's no way I'll be able to sell Lost to these East coast academics. Or even to myself, frankly.

A, B, C. It's as Easy as 1, 2, 3.

I began to like my students today. I've heard, before, from my many friends who have taught English 101 at Western, and my friends teaching 401 at UNH, that the first term's students are irreplaceable. That I'll never get another bunch like them. That I will always have a special place in my heart for those 24 shining faces. And it's true. I began this semester, resentful of the fact that Student X was not, in fact, Student A, that Student Y's comments were not nearly as insightful as Student B's, and the rapport I had spent nearly 16 weeks building with my students, my kids, my little proteges, was gone. Dashed to the ground. And I had to start from scratch.

Moving into the second week of the semester, however, I am hopeful for this bunch of kids. I ended last week wondering what I was doing here, wondering--yet again--why I am teaching freshman composition at 8 in the morning while it's 15 degrees outside (New Hampshire necessitates changing into teacher clothes only once I arrive to Hamilton-Smith), wondering what I am doing trying to teach these sleepy 18 year olds how to write when all they really want to do is go back to bed.

But today, after tripping on a student's feet, getting chalk dust all over my skirt, and discussing the use of humor in David Sedaris, I'm back at it. Imparting my knowledge. Spreading ways of thinking and being in this world. (I have yet, Matt, to find a better job description for the composition instructor.) And loving it.

Trade-off?

I have a proposition to make, Yellow. Let's trade-off. Remember that month of blogging you finished? Those 31 days where you blogged, religiously, doggedly, despite student papers and conferences and your own work? I'm tempted to say it's my turn now.

I know February is shorter. I know 28 days is nothing like 31. But 28 days of blogging may well be more posts than I wrote for the entire 2009 year.

I'll try. I won't make any promises. And perhaps, just maybe, we'll make it to March. And one of us will continue.

And hey, if nothing else, it'll make Chelsea happy.