Abstract thoughts

I just sent off an abstract for a collection of essays - it's from the fourth chatper of The Thesis so wasn't too hard - still a new experience and took far more psychological space than it should have, or than I have space for right now! The intro is just not going to be done for Monday. I still over-estimate my ability to write, forgetting than when I did write 2000 words a night A) I was about 19 and B) they were mostly crap.

We watched Children of Men the other night. It was terrifically disappointing possibly because I had really high hopes for it. First off, while the title sounds all 'ooh...how evocative and traditional and poo like that' it begs the question: is the problem with the future related to the fact that they are relying on men to reproduce the species? I simply will not buy the aesthetic argument that 'children of humankind' is 'clunky'. Honestly. A friend pointed out that there are also some fairly disturbing comparisons made between the black heroine and livestock. The sexual politics of the thing were just all over the place and the end turns into a video-game. No there really is never a question that Kee and her daughter will survive, but they could have done something more interesting with the premise of the thing. Another thing, how is one baby going to solve the infertility problem of the whole planet? Shouldn't they be more interested in Kee and whoever the father is? I suppose one reason for the silly title is that, in the film, women have obviously spectacularly failed at our one single biological task: reproduction. Maybe the film is actually suggesting that we hand that over to men and see how they do (Theo, our hero, dies by the way, but not until safely handing Kee and baby over to other men). Okay so the entire world is more or less united in mouring the whole no children thing - but the fault is tacitly or otherwise placed with women. And another thing, (which my friend also pointed out), I didn't care about anyone in the film - which, I appreciate, is not exactly a solid criticism, but I think I was supposed to. Particularly our hero, whose tangled past just bored rather than intrigued and whose rather pathetic attempts to be indifferent and avoid the whole plot were kind of laughable.

Blah.

Another sure sign of spring: the end of the tax year. And the budget travelling in its very special little red briefcase from No.11 to parliament and from there onto the front pages of every newspaper in the country. Guess what? For those of us down here, nothing changed.

Mornings and afternoons

We've been adding linseed (flax) to our morning oatmeal - which is the best breakfast food ever - cause hey, I'm 30, I figured I should start thinking like this. Anyway, it's nice and slightly nutty.

But you know what I miss? Red River cereal. If anyone has any out there, I'd appreciate a list of what's in it. I'm pretty sure flax was there, likely millet...I could make my own if I knew the rest. I also miss cream-of-wheat which we've searched for but can't find here. We did bring some back from Canada but went through it pretty fast.

Dear lord, I'm blogging about breakfast cereals. There is just no way to pass this off as anything but procrastination...

minor injuries

Within about two minutes of play on the basketball court on Sunday I was injured. Yup. Tragically, I jammed my finger the first time I tried to catch a 'pass'. It hurt like hell. I had no idea basketball was so dangerous. I think I'll stick to running. Amazingly, I haven't injured myself running. The swelling on my poor finger is pretty much gone but wow, did it ever swell up. And some impressive bruising has appeared all the way down to my palm. The annoying thing about the injury is that it hurt but wasn't debilitating...I mean, if I'm going to hurt my hands at this stage, it might as well be something that works as a legitimate excuse for an extension!

Logan managed to sneak out the open kitchen window the other day - we didn't realise until he frantically scrabbled at the door to get in. His tail was huge!! I don't know what scared him but he hasn't been that keen at the door since. Laila is still uninterested in the big world. She's become a most cuddly cat though still strange - this morning she ate some strawberry.

Virgin media has a new ad campaign right now featuring Uma Thurman. Initially, they were just celebrating how many times you could watch Uma's movies on Virgin (I think Richard Branson must be a fan), now they just seem to feature Uma rambling about rain. I'm not sure what the point is but I've lost any interest in watching her films. It's always funny when a commercial brings about the opposite reaction from what is intended.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last two days - I'll say it quietly: I think it's spring!! Walking home from the library was lovely: the mist was back from the morning and the sky was watercolour wash with leftover sunshine. In spite of my general feeling that the day deserved a do-over, it was a pretty nice finish.

It's where I hang my hat

Overheard just down from the uni steps. Speaker: female, young, would-be rah, clearly undergraduate, likely of some vapid communications degree. Situation: (from what I could ascertain) fallout of a recent seminar discussion combined with commentary on some related social event.

'Don't call me a feminist! I ain't a feminist!'

Yes dear. Because god and Primark forbid that you associate yourself in any way with the movement that enabled you to attend the institution at which you took the course that prompted such a reaction.

As I was about to board the bus home, the lady in front of me dropped a pound coin inbetween the pavement curb and the bus wheel. But she continued to board so I assumed she hadn't noticed. So I picked it up. And found her on the bus and handed it back. The response to my 'excuse me ma'am, I think you dropped this'?

'Ta, luv. I ded, bu' whern't gan t' ben' dahn t' ghet ih'.

Lovely. I should have kept it. What kind of person doesn't pick up a bloody pound?! That's a whole bus fare home!

Then, just as the bus reached within sight-distance of my stop, a group of school-girls at the back started yelling 'BOGEYS' at the top of their prepubescent lungs.

Considering the things I've heard loudly proclaimed on public transit, I thought it was kind of sweet.

The Ultimate Song

Having nearly 6 HE degrees between us, a slight hangover, and time to catch up on bits of dangling conversations on the walk to the city centre, Nas and I have discovered The Ultimate Song. Without straying into schmulz, it walks a careful line between sincerity and mockery; it has not one but TWO wanking-guitar solos; too polished to be grungy and forbidding, too dirty to be emo or prog, The Ultimate Song gestures with class and grace towards it's formidable predecessors, it's impressive colleagues in the field of ROCK, and offers a sweet salute to the unknown guitar wankers of the unseen future.

Yes, your heart is singing it - your heels are keeping time with that tight rhythm guitar - you are unconsciously bringing your arm up for that air-chord...

More than a Feeling. Boston. Nope, yer not dreaming now.

That's right.

(Note: a google search of 'the ultimate song' does not turn up 'More than a Feeling' or Boston...yet).

In case you need further proof of it's Awesome Power, consider the following testimonial: Aqua Teen Hunger Force neighbour, Carl Brutananadilewski, actually refers to it as 'the ultimate song'. This and other interesting facts about the ultimate song - for example, it took 7 years to write - can be found here. That's right - it's so great it has its own wikipedia entry.

Go on. Listen. Feel your chest expand with emotion - play that air guitar. Let it sink into your soul. Make it more than a feeling.

This is thot

Sometimes, people make me warm and fuzzy inside. Sometimes, they make me feel bad for generally being cynical about the state of the world as it is and the future of humanity (what a prat! Do I really spend any time thinking about that? while sober?).

Downtown doing the groceries this morning and on the way home, we stopped at the best sweet shop in the city and bought our favourite chocolate - from an amazing Belgian artisanal company - and proceeded to the best comic store in the ENTIRE WORLD (I did think that before this morning). As is my wont, I immediately squealed as though the store were full of baby polar bears, put down my precious chocolate, and started reading from the counter display. The fellow who owns the store is fantastic and we've been patrons since moving here so he doesn't even raise an eyebrow at my performance - I established my cred long ago. Anyway, Nas found something new, we chatted with the owner about various books, browsed through their fantastic collection of small-press stuff and chapbooks, and left. Only about 30 minutes later did I realise that I was no longer in possession of my chocolate.

So I swore. And stomped around a bit. And hiked with our groceries all the way back to OK Comics. And as soon as I walked in lovely owner smiled and presented me with my chocolate bar. And the world was sunny again.

C'mon, I'm writing up my thesis - yes, this does count as really really making my day.

I forgot to mention that Nas cut my hair last week. I love it - and I've gotten more compliments than when I've spent £40.

Facebook: I'm increasingly ambivalent about Facebook. I still love it - it's brought me into contact with people I haven't seen in nearly 10 years; people that I wouldn't know how to find otherwise. At the same time, I wonder about the efficacy or point of 'reconnecting' virtually with people I met and grew fond of because of shared experiences, shared spaces and places - not simply e-letters exchanged because of a convenient new SNS. But then, I think good crap! what kind of a luddite/cynical isolationist am I? Maybe it's cause I'm just not very good at acquaintances; there are people on there that used to be big parts of my life - people that I thought I would be in touch with 'forever' - people who didn't disappear suddenly, but gradually. I just looked around one day and realised that they weren't there and any regret was because I hadn't noticed them leaving: I'd just felt the space where they'd been. And I suppose the older I get (hey, nearly 30! Wisdom speaking - pay attention) the more I'm afraid of giving with the same intensity that I threw into every relationship when I was young and boundless. These facebook-entries are haunted - not so much by memories, as by shades of fearlessness and youth. The casual 'hey, there you are! How've you been?' somehow thick with the intensity of the friendship-that-was. And I'm afraid of the things that I've forgotten, the people - including myselves - that I've left behind, because I don't know them anymore. So it's a risk I suppose; a chance to reconnect not only with old friends but with old selves, younger me-s that I insist are strangers now to this woman I've become.

But then I realise I want to be a part of this; I miss these people and I respond to this newness of old friends - this is how we are becoming and moving forward, by folding back on ourselves.

Facebook!

I've discovered something even more fascinating than blogging. Yes, in spite of all my blustering about joining something on which my students could find out personal and embarrassing details about me (such as spelling errors and favourite movies), I've joined Facebook.

I love it.

I also discovered that I absolutely love making lists of things about me. Which is why my personal file on said website is bigger than anyone else's that I've come across.

I think I'm going to have to work on my CV before applying for any jobs, alas. Unless they will humour me by listening to the things I'd like to publish - or would have published if I didn't have to hold down two jobs during my degree just to pay rent! So rather than spend time applying now, I'm going to spend time writing articles out of my thesis. It does beat trying to come up with a first line for my introduction. I have about twenty false-starts for that already...

It's snowing and sunny today, bizarre, yes. Tonight, there is fun planned - we're meeting up with some friends from the old workplace. I am being especially virtuous today to make up for it though: I ran for 30 minutes this AM, I'm spending the afternoon bashing my head against my desk in the library, and I'm going to pilates this evening.

Not nearly (bad as it seems)

It wasn't so bad - in retrospect; at the time, I was fairly furious. But the sofa in the PG common room isn't half bad for a nap. It's a pretty cosy room - though the windows do bang against the sashes a bit. Oh well. I did get ripped off by the taxi-man for my ride home - £4.50!! My last fivver...

He's not the worst husband ever - just a bit of a deep sleeper. Luckily work yesterday was busy-ish (for the library I'm at anyway!) so I didn't have to sit at the desk for any long stretches. I even shelved for over an hour. Last day of term - all the kids brought their books back - the shelving bays were stacked. Shelving is actually fairly relaxing; it's dead easy, repetitive, and requires little to no thought.

There's a job posting for a year-long position at Leeds in 18th-century literature. I've emailed my supervisor to ask her opinion but I think I will apply for it - with no hopes but that of gaining some experience in a nice familiar setting. I've got the teaching experience - just not the publication record. In the next two weeks I have to finish my chapter draft, write a proposal for a collection of essays, and now, write up and submit my CV and application for a REAL JOB. Yikes. So much for Easter hols.

That being said, I do have motivation - we've been invited up to the Lake District! If that doesn't get me going, eager to finish everything, nothing will.

BTW, it's Mother's Sunday here - and it snowed today. I don't think these things are related. But the sun has suddenly appeared and it is beautiful outside now. I prefer Mother's Day in May tho that might be purely nostalgic since my favourite mass when I was a kid (Catholic school - yes, I had a favourite mass) was the one dedicated to the Virgin Mary in May (which I was taught was the 'Month of Mary' and got to feel rather special that my birthday was in that month too) that kind of extended to all mothers. I remember the church was beautiful - this was before they painted it an ill-conceived shade of pink - and of the heaps of flowers there, most of them were Lillies of the Valley, which I loved for some reason. I loved the hymns to Mary as well.

Anyway, the point is - happy mother's day mum! and Grandma! But I'll call on the real mother's day...

i am the worst husband ever

Term ended at York this Friday. And with the end of the day, so did my teaching duties this term. A reason to celebrate, if ever there was one - and celebrate i did. I celebrated so much that i sent myself home early (a bit worse for wear). A kiss for kaley, a walk home in the rain, a stop at the takeaway for a so-traditional-it-hurts fish and chips, some idiotic late night television, and off to bed my one am.

Being a security minded fellow, i made sure in my psedo-somnelent state to make sure our front door - by putting the chain on.

I'm fast asleep and dreaming when an hour or so later, kaley comes home, tries the door, finds it impassable, and does the smart thing.

She knocks.

(no answer but a snore)

She calls the phone and lets it ring for an hour

(i'm still cutting z's)

She heaves stones at the bedroom window

(i roll over)

Suddenly, at four am, I wake up in a cold sweat when i realize that i've locked her out. I call her mobile phone, and she's walked up a big hill in the early early morning back to the university, and has made herself as comfortable as possible in the graduate common room (it's common practice for stressed out students to sleep there as project deadlines loom).

At 9:30 am, i watched my lovely wife leave for her shift at the library.

i'm open to suggestions as to how to make this one up to her.

(edit: I can hear you thinking. "this is a pretty illiterate post for a fellow who calls himself a writer" - and you would be right. Rather than correct myself and preserve a veneer of respectability, i choose instead to let my grinding syntax and careless errors speak toward how pathetic i was feeling at the time.)

Me, me, ME!

Ah the last day of term...teaching finished for the meanwhile...a seemingly endless succession of days without students in my office, gym, or library...

The weather's gotten cold again. I was hoping for a nice clean March - in like a lion, out like a lamb. I suppose it is only the middle of the much-misaligned month. I'll give it another chance. The garden's not quite ready for planting yet.

I haven't yet heard from the panel I applied to at this year's RMMLA conference in Calgary. Alas, I think that means they're trying to find a way to gently let me down. Nas, on the other hand, was accepted to a very exciting-looking conference in Maine next fall on Literature and Science. Yeah, I'm a bit jealous. His research is so much sexier than mine...

The Bulgarian Bullet and I went to our first regular pilates class since our course finished at the beginning of the week. It was awesome. And way harder than our beginner stuff! My shoulder has been acting up - I'm writing my introduction - and pilates does help. Nas pointed out yesterday that I sleep with my head off the pillow, which might have something to do with the pain in my shoulder/neck. I'll have to invest in one of those special pillows...yeesh, I'm getting old.

But for the short meantime, there's a gathering of all us relieved post-grads tonight to celebrate the end of term and a squash game before that (where I will be trounced, alas). Tomorrow I may work, but tonight - I play!

a week's worth of ramble

What a week...I've learned that a common cold can turn into nasty things - like conjuntivitis... Which has a very high ick factor. And it developed between 2 and 4pm on Thursday, right in the middle of my seminars. How charming I must have looked trying to demonstrate any kind of authority or reassurance while leaking snot from my eye. Luckily, I'm currently sporting a kind of Thurston Moore, circa 1995, coiffeur and so was able to at least obscure the eye in question.

And the medication that the chemist handed me over the counter was a drug that caused my dad to doubt my ability to read - he made me spell it out over the phone - and then calmly explain that it wasn't available back home because it (very rarely) caused persistently deadly side-effects. Fun! Anyway, the eye seems to be clearing up on its own - maybe the three doses of deadly-drug worked.

The highlight of the week was definitely Wednesday night - completely worth the rest of the week - I'm still smiling. We meant to go to a concert at Nas's uni but were having such a wonderful time just talking and making goofy-lovey-dovey faces at each other that we decided to give it a miss. You know when you realise that in spite of sharing a (very small) space, you haven't actually exchanged anything more important than the state of the milk in the fridge? Yeah. So I dressed up, Nas met me off the train in York, we walked around the city enjoying the sudden reappearance of the sun after threatening clouds all day. York is beautiful in the late afternoon, especially when heavy rain-clouds move off to the east and the sun is starting to set in the west. If anyone is planning on visiting York, try to be there for this. The Minster is particularly stunning as Yorkshire stone compliments Yorkshire weather-effects with a native grace: the whole thing glows in that kind of light.

In keeping with this mellow yellow kind of afternoon, Nas promised me a banana-flavoured beer...and it was! We had dinner at Concerto Cafe - and I will whole-heartedly advertise them here. Small, cosy, excellent food, lovely wine. The only thing I might say is that we weren't really asked how everything was - the service might have been a bit more engaging. But then, I suppose plenty of people prefer service as invisible as possible. I did think that the style of the place might suggest a more informal approach. But it was lovely - and with a view of the Minster's impressive west entrance. Such a perfect evening.

Tonight we're going to a good old-fashioned pizza party...

I've been reading about privacy recently. It's interesting, of course, to be writing about such a topic on a weblog - do I have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Do I want privacy given that I'm using this medium? If I don't, do readers suppose that I present an authentic 'me'? I suppose authenticity is an outmoded concept anyway. But it is interesting in light of something I heard during a seminar about a project commissioned by the CBC asking prominent writers to keep diaries - with the understanding that they would be published. One participant noted that she had started doing things, noticing things, in order to include them in her journal. On the other hand, privacy can protect the trivial; it isn't always a mask to conceal subversive or exceptional private lives. I suppose one outcome of the explosion of weblogs is the relevation of a critical mass of quotidian lives - a defensive presentation of the ordinary and mundane. And of course, in turn, it creates a readership comforted by the multifaceted projections of the universality of experience, if we consider it in its broadest, most general aspects: eating, loving, working, sleeping; health and illness; change and stability; interactions with people and self-centred reflections of how they affect me. It's a comforting continuity - a borderless mass of code that lets me believe there is solace in the trivial details of my life and the people and things that share my life - not just for me, but for strangers for whom reading my 'private' log is participating in a continuing, becoming, existence.

But then again, maybe not.

March madness

...which for me, has less to do with basketball and more to do with marking essays...

Lurgy didn't last as long as I feared it would - either that, or my body is actually trying to avoid marking by making me want to go and play outside. It was warm enough in the afternoon yesterday that we went and played a set of tennis at the courts in our lovely local park. When the sun went behind the clouds, we had to come home - not quite there yet.

Yes...marking... I have to stop after a certain number of papers otherwise I get rather vitriolic in my comments. I just wrote 'APOSTROPHE!!!' across one paper. But, honestly, how exactly do you get this far in life - or in an English degree - not knowing how to use an apostrophe? I know if anyone reading is an experienced teacher or prof that you are shaking your head and muttering about the idealism and rigidity of youthful PhDs...which is exactly what my teaching mentor and marking partners have done. But seriously. An apostrophe? I knew how to use one of those before I left elementary school. The occassional massive generalisations and twisted logic make me laugh - which is worth something. But I do love to see burgeoning interests peeking out of almost-there prose - and that is sincere. I've got great seminar groups this semester.

I think I'll try and make it to York this afternoon to see the concert Nas proposed. I'll call it a reward for getting through a few more papers and a chapter of my new book (it's not exciting - well, it is to me, but falls in the realm of watching a nerd with a new pocket-protector organize her pens).

Lurgy monday

I've managed to pick up whatever bug Nas had last week. I was hoping I'd somehow escaped it, but alas, no such luck. So here I am, at home on the couch with my honey-lemon 'tea', my books, and my drafts of my thesis, while the sun shines beautifully through the windows. Alas. By staying inside for the next two-three days I'm hoping to beat this in time to see the concert we've been planning to see in York on Wednesday evening. I haven't been out of the city since I got back after Christmas. Plus, I really don't want to reschedule my five seminars on Thursday.

We made it up to the garden on Saturday - and to the garden centre. Nas dug a huge bed for potatoes and our garden-mate and I dug a couple more. We also found some lovely flowers to plant - poppies, heather, and something called 'snake-headed flotilary' which is apparently a native species that environmental groups are encouraging gardeners to re-introduce. It's really very pretty with flower heads that do look suspiciously like snake heads that are mottled purple and white. My thyme survived the 'winter' (such as it was!) - it's root system escaped the pot it was in and it anchored itself firmly to the ground where I'd left it. Nas had to dig around it to move it. And as another global-warming anecdote: our salad leaves are still coming up from last spring. Usually the cold should kill them off... and our romanesco broccoli survived as well! I was chuffed to find them though - every year, our garden gives us something unexpected, gifts from the ground - usually its potatoes.

Now we have onions, potatoes, and garlic ready to go into the ground in a couple weeks - aparently, there is still danger of frost at nights. We also got a kilo of majestic potatoes (that's both the name of the particular species, and a description of their taste and versatility) so we should have potatoes coming out of our proverbial ears come late summer.

Sunday, Nas and I walked down to the farmer's market in the city centre. Usually, I work at the library on the weekends it's held (1st and 3rd Sundays of the month) but I was off this weekend. It was fantastic - I love markets and could spend hours wandering around sampling things. This week we got some lovely game sausages from the Dales, some wild mushrooms (which we ate in a mushroom risotto last night whacked up with some delicious home-made veg stock a friend brought us and porcini mushroom stock), free-range organic eggs, local honey, lemon curd, and marmalade, and a freshly made baguette. I've recently converted to eggs and I'm eager to try whether, as Nasser claims, they really do taste better than battery-produced eggs. I love the taste of self-righteous satisfaction as much as the next person, so I'm betting they will. The wild mushrooms definitely challeged my perception of mushrooms - they actually tasted of mushroom. I don't remember the name of the ones we bought but they were lovely creamy things with a really rich, woody flavour. I like eating food that announces it's origins - these tasted of crumbling logs and mulch, something that caught in the mouth and nose that called up earth, dark colours and closeness.

This morning Nas commented that his entire breakfast was made with things bought locally - our market eggs and bread from the bakery round the corner. Soon we'll have our own produce to add to the table.

Oh and I did read the paper this weekend - Friday and Saturday actually. It's as I thought - nothing much has changed. Aparently shipping by sea is more harmful than air travel...I guess we should all get comfy where we are. They did also include a quite-handy guide to UK cycling trips - and I think the trains are still okay morally and environmentally. But that's only this week. Which reminds me, I need to call the city council and complain that my recycle bin is being emptied into the rubbish truck...