100

I've been at the library 9 out of the last 10 days either working or researching. And I'm actually not sick of it. It's just starting to feel like home - I should bring a toothbrush.

So I've been 30 for a whole weekend now and still don't feel any different.

This morning was one of those mornings - the kind where I think, we should have stayed in bed, but that would have made it worse. Our trusty alarm clock (Wilko's special four years ago) has finally given up the ghost. Of course, today was one of very few days where we actually needed to be up - 6am for poor Nas - to get to work. I woke up at 7.54; Nas was out of the house by 8... Then, just to crank up my adrenaline as well, his manager called me at my library to say that Nas hadn't turned up to work an hour later. After fifteen minutes in which I convinced myself that he had disappeared somewhere on the 10 minute walk between our house and campus, she rang back to say he was, in fact, at work - they just hadn't checked round. Now adrenaline gone, I'm a bit tired.

Thank goodness for the end of long weekends.

This post has been brought to you by the number 100.

sure, it's raining

But i am writing this in Britain.

as it is the weekend, and i am trapped behind a desk (working) in a university library - a library with no students (a situation which is either ideal [for the librarian] or depressing [because no one is using all this lovely, perfectly good Knowledge]), and it is raining outside, and i am bored to the core of my being...i offer you all this:

paper planes

(i'm kind of stuck constructing the Gomez. i think my favorite is the Silke.)

c'mon, who doesn't like paper planes? or blanket forts? or anything that requires the obsession and borderline mania that only a child trying to balance a playing card on its edge can muster?

Top tip: breathe deep and fold crisply.

30

The OED word-of-the-day today is 'mysterious'.

The weather today is beautiful.

Today is also the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Today is a glorious day to be born. I've always liked my birthday - I like the symmetry of 25/5/77 - I like the spring/summer-ness of it. But I also like the fact that it feels like any other day.

29

This is the last day of my 20s. I don't mind turning 30 - but I don't like, as my friend put it, the public pressure on 30. People keep offering to 'cheer me up' and 'keep me company' on my birthday, rather than celebrate it! I like turning 30; I especially like the fact that 30 will mark the end of my formal education. I will be a 'Dr' at 30. 'Professor' by 40? Maybe.

It's a fun mental game to think about 30 years ago today. I wasn't here. Or I was here? But not here? This would have been the last day of my parents' lives as two. I'm sure people prepare for these things but I'm also pretty certain that the actual screaming, pooping, realness of a baby is different from whatever was imagined. And that was me.

And why, exactly, does 30 loom so large in the cultural imaginary?

At any rate, I am going to enjoy this last day of 29 by sitting in my office reading articles and writing my thesis. Tomorrow...!

Me V Logan

Logan is so attached to our desk chair that he will, if necessary, sit on whatever is occupying the chair while he 'needs' it. This includes books, cushions, coats, random objects and people - me in particular. While there are few things more comforting in my life than my cats purring on my lap, Logan is huge and heavy and simply not responsive to arguments about me needing to finish my thesis in order to get a job in order to keep him in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed, which I am currently trying to do.

World leader, pretend

I'm slowing moving up the ranks in the library towards my ultimate goal of LIBRARY DOMINATION. As of September, I'm a CSA 1 - a step up from my current lowly position as CSA. It doesn't come with a pay-rise, but I do get an extra shift during the week. I also managed to secure a few hours a week over the summer, which should keep us from selling 'The Big Issue' outside of the Victoria Quarter.

This morning we went running the opposite direction down the canal path - exciting times. It's actually a bit tougher than the way we usually run as the locks are towards the city centre which means its downhill one way and uphill the way home... It's getting warm finally and I need to find some summer running clothes - NOT SHORTS however. I have a pathological hatred of myself in shorts. I'm thinking more those trendy short-pants or long-shorts.

Can I take a moment and wax on about running? I love running. I love it so much. I love that it actually makes me leave a pub early, get up early, get out early. I love having an entire morning after running when I'm feeling absolutely great. I love the fact that I have two little abdominal muscles developing. I love my new legs with ropey bits of muscle clearly visible. I love that it is free, ethical, environmental - it's really the Ultimate Good.

Today I walked to work without my coat.

And we're curing our own bacon - not nearly as cool as saying I smoke my own bacon but our neighbourhood isn't so dodgy as to allow random fires/smoking piles of stuff... I'm very excited. I bought a side of free-range, organic, rare-breed pork belly (Gloucestershire Old Spot) from the farmer's market a few weeks ago (for a tenner he let me have that and a beautiful tenderloin which we had the other night) . Now it is sitting in our fridge, 'curing' away, (hopefully) turning into the best bacon we've ever had. I'll keep you posted.

Things I want to do in the next five years:

I usually hate these kind of goal oriented lists - so I've called this things I want to do, rather than things i 'will accomplish' or some other nonsense. It must be turning 30 - which doesn't bother me, but it's a nice round number to think about and ponder over - not too hard, mind you.

* run a half-marathon

* have a kitchen with a dining area big enough to have a table and chairs which we will then actually use for eating. As is, our kitchen fits the two of us standing very close together. We did have a table and chairs in the lounge but, as with any flat surface, it became a paper-holding space. How I long to sit at a table or stand around a kitchen island while eating!

* publish my book.

* start my career.

* learn sign language. The library runs a scheme that grants employees funding for courses not directly related to our jobs. It's a perfect waste not to get free education so I've been casting around for something to take up. When Nas was ill years ago we got out a book of AmSign to play with and loved it. I've forgotten what we taught ourselves now.

* travel more. Pretty open, I know. But it's just embarassing to have been living here this long and never have gotten to France... Or Belgium...

* have a house with storage space and a spare room and windows on more than one side. Pretty bourgeois, I know. Dare I add a garden and studio room for Nas? I mean, I thought it unrealistic to want a house of our own in five years, especially as we want to build.

I'm sure there are more. I like lists. Anyway, I'm not 30 for another week (five days actually!) so I'll keep on a-thinkin'.

drabble

I slept well last night but obviously in some contortionists pose as I woke up with my neck and shoulders in agony. Annoyingly, it hasn't gone away. Interestingly, I'm forced into really excellent posture as it is the only position that seems to offer any relief. Irritatingly, I have to go to York this afternoon to give a paper at their post-grad seminar series. The train journey will not be comfortable!

The interviews for the one-year lectureship here at the uni were this morning. I considered applying but chose not to on the basis of my scanty publications (that is, none). One thing I realise having sat through the candidates - I should have applied. Bother.

sunday afternoons and teaspoons

The weather did not co-operate but we didn't care - and we braved the incliment outdoors for about 2 1/2 hours before retiring to our friend's generously donated house. Such a lovely party! Though there were no party frocks, linen trousers, or croquet, we did have two games of Kubb going and spillikins (a giant version of pick-up-sticks - I loved it!). And so much food! But most of all, good friends at ease with each other. How fortunate we are in our friends here.

Nasser's cake went down a hit and small wonder - Look at it!


I am not a good hostess, however. I ran for an hour in the morning and then spent from about 10am until 3pm cooking for the party - with the result that I made lovely food but was exhausted by about 8pm! Ah well.

Today the rain hasn't stopped since about 9.30...it's not cold, though. So just a nice, cosy, spring storm. These days always remind me of the conservatory in our old house in Simcoe. I remember wearing a striped shirt - red, I think - and there was a brass lamp with a frosted glass shade, cut like a lily, shining from on top of an old bureau with an ancient radio on top. That radio had an 8-track player in it. This memory is from before the kitchen was redone and I'm sitting on the old black and tan couch which was on the wall facing the back door. I can see from the corner of my eye (or maybe I know it so well, I can see without looking) the cork wall beside the kitchen table and the linoleum floor running from the kitchen into the sun-room - little squares and rectangles of colour in a pattern I never did figure out. There is rain on the windows, still falling heavily on the skylights - it is late afternoon and darker than it should be. The windows in the room have fogged up with breath and cooking. I am young and comfortable and reading Bambi: a Life in the Woods by Felix Salten.

Now I am comfortable and older - there is rain on the window though it is no longer falling outside. It is dark out - but only the usual dimness of a cloudy spring afternoon; there are no trees outside my window to filter the light. My cats are curled up with my husband on the couch that faces the stairs. The television is on, perched on a black stand we salvaged from the bin-yard. In front of me is the memory I have written out - a passage of time - behind me (seen with vision sharper then my poor eyes) could be my parents' home in Canada, an apartment in Kingston, a flat in Windsor or, as memory and the present resolve, my home here and now.

It's my party...

Kind of... four of my friends were born in May too. So we're having one big party. I'm the only gemini though - so I'm of two minds about it all...

Nas is making a cake as we speak - he even went out and bought silly decorations - little animal shapes and marshmallows. It's not a bunny cake, I'll admit, but still very sweet. He did make me a birthday bunny cake the first year we were here - best cake a girl could have, right sis?

I'm making lovely dippable things - perfect for eating while holding a drink. And sushi and Spanish tortilla - both culinary memories of good friends who live far away now.

And moi? I am dying my hair - for the party, you see. I found a bunch of old henna blocks from Lush (oh how I love Lush!). I forget what colour they were supposed to be though so the result may be a surprise: either red or chestnut, I think. Or nothing; it's hard to tell with henna. I used to dye my hair crazy colours on purpose. There was the last day of exams in my third year at Queen's - bright bright purple (I'm not sure why - I wasn't an engineer). My flatmate's parents came to pick her up that afternoon - mid-dye; they'd never met me before - I'm not sure what kind of impression I made. I distinctly recall not caring though! Then there was the summer of peroxide blonde...with fire-engine red fringe. Oh how my grandmother trembled for the future! Henna tends to leak green - I wouldn't mind if my hair turned out green - dark green preferably. I could claim I was turning into the Hulk.

Back to the present: perhaps I will dress up and take a photo of me at my party with my hair. Here is one of what I look like mid-process:



(fast forward to)

double double

In all my excitement, I forgot that I had indeed posted about my fantastic meeting with my supervisor... apologies for the repeat. Obviously it was so good that I felt obliged to tell the world twice.

The sun is still shining so gloriously today - I am not getting anything done in my office except some reading... I have to work at 5, so am determined to stay until then and 'work'...

Zizek!

I forgot to say - after all my stress (including calling my grandmother in near-tears and making her worry!), I had a really excellent supervisory meeting last Friday.

I also forgot to mention that we saw SpiderMan3 on the weekend. It's so awful. My god - over 2 hours of complete and utter drivvel. Not even Bruce Campbell could save it (though he was the one spot of relief!). It's just so very republican - so very normative and deterministically heterosexual. So very boring.

And we watched Little Miss Sunshine - which was very feel-good.

Took a kicking in squash yesterday. I don't like playing a game of squash - keeping score makes it less fun for me, even when I'm winning. But it was still fun. I didn't keep score - though I definitely lost! And we went for a good run today in the early morning sunshine.

Saturday, we're hoping for very good weather as we're planning a day in the park - 5 May birthdays (mine included).

Oh yes, I also found this: Zizek! It's a documentary film about the Slovenian academic. See, academics are cool.

Eat(ing), Drink(ing), and Be(ing) Merry

I'm still alive! My meeting with my supervisor was fantastic - as usual. Actually, it was better than usual as we were able, for the first time, to talk about the project as a whole. She asked me what my thesis was about and I answered - and answered well. So now, in the final stretch, I have a month to submit my introduction and chapter one. And so on from there.

Our friend visited from London this weekend - which was lovely. Friday we just sat around - all exhausted (she teaches primary school in London) - ate pasta and listened to music while catching up and such. Saturday we went into Leyburn with a bunch of friends from Leeds for the food and drink festival. Lovely beers!! And the food tent! Nasser ate enough meat to last him a couple days at least. They had amazing ice-cream stalls too - our friend G-- had ginger ice-cream. I had green gooseberry and mango frozen yoghurt. They also had a very interesting farming display with the theme 'Farming for Food' about local, sustainable farming projects. They had calves (squee!!) and a some very strange looking sheep (they looked like they had dredlocks...). Inside there was a display of textile production (for which the Aire valley is historically important): from the sheep (stinky, matted wool coated in lanolin) to the finest skeins. And I didn't realise that different kinds of sheep produced different wools: the leicestershire (lancashire?) blue's wool was gorgeous - silky and fine, but another sheep's was like stiff cotton balls.

Having eaten and drunk our fill - my favourite beer was a Belgian-style wheat beer called 'Val de Plas' from Wharfedale breweries - we made our way home. I should say, getting out and back required a train and two different buses. Considering there were eight of us trying to stick together, it could have been (should have been!) disasterous. Unbelievably - and I will tell this story when I hear of nightmare journeys involving only one train! - our connections were not only on time, they were perfectly timed. The longest we waited was about 15 minutes in Leyburn on the way home. The sun even came out in the afternoon and the wind softened.

Nas gave me an early birthday present - a new camera (okay, it's for both of us!) that he found for a great deal at a second-hand shop because it's missing the manual and packaging. This is a long way of saying...I didn't take many pictures... But next weekend is birthday-palooza in the park for five (5!) of us born in May. I promise to faithfully record the event - I may even buy a new frock for the occassion as it is supposed to be slightly-formal wear (we're going to play garden games and eat canapes).

So a good weekend had by all. And now back to work. We went for a good run this morning - I was so stiff! Shin splints seem to be getting better - they only really bother me starting out now. I have to write a paper this week as I've been invited to give one at the York post-grad seminar next Tuesday. 'Write' is misleading - I'll be ripping the guts out of one of my chapters and tweaking it to sound like a paper rather than a chapter!

week's end

ugh. What a week. I have been sternly told by my grandmother that I take on too much. She's likely right. It's just that most of the time, I feel like I'm not doing enough: enough research, enough paid work, enough exercise... This week I think I topped my record: Monday-Wednesday I was in my office by 9.30, wrote (or tried to write - another problem) until 12.30, had lunch, worked at the library until 5pm, went back to office and wrote (tried to) until anywhere between 7.30 and 9.30...went home. I also ran Tuesday and Wednesday at 7.15 - and they were really really great runs. I probably should've kept the running up but yesterday I had to teach all day starting at 10 so I postponed the run til today. Yet, as you see, gentle reader, it is 'today' and I am typing, not running. The spirit was very willing - the flesh is tired.

This week, I was supposed to hand in the second half of my introduction. It's not in. I have a fairly unproductive way of dealing with this - I wind myself up, convinced that my supervisor is going to tear me open to find the writing, become irritable, snappy, and tired, - none of which makes writing much easier. As I've said before, I've got no reason to believe that my supervisor will treat me thus - she never has been anything but supportive and encouraging. But in that state of mind, everything becomes an issue - this morning when I woke up feeling awful, I immediately felt guilty for feeling unable to run. Upon calm reflection, I do see how this pattern is silly - but I haven't yet figured out a way out of it in the moment.

Anyway, just sitting here, I'm feeling better (and supervisor emailed today to say not to worry - I'd emailed her on Wednesday panicking about my writing...). I have my last consultation hour of the year - possibly my last before finishing my PhD! - and then the meeting this afternoon. Our friend is visiting from London this weekend and we're heading out to the Dales to go to a food and drink festival - hopefully the weather co-operates. Every morning has felt like November and every afternoon like June. I got a sunburn from teaching outside...