work in progress

I know - another Guardian-inspired blog ... but I just couldn't help it! This is one of the greatest headlines I've ever seen:
The world is still organised to meet the wishes of men.

Um ... really? This does fit up there with 'binge drinking causes hangovers' and 'London not centre of universe as previously imagined'. No - seriously - REALLY? Huh. Gee, Guardian, just because you don't have a page 3 girl, did you think that balanced the scales?

I remain, world, as ever, your bewildered and adoring child.

how not to get in shape

1. Live in Leeds in February.

2. Look out window every morning and see: a) rain b) frozen fog c) regular fog d) have your eyes frozen shut and be frozen into the bed.

Okay, I can only come up with two things that don't point immediately to just being a lazy cow. But we did get back out there this morning and I already feel morally and physically superior to everyone who didn't. Especially the students we passed while running still clearly wearing their tribal gear from the night before - and/or clutching that last beer smuggled - ever the very crust of class - from the pub at closing time. Is this how Conservatives start? Is running a gate-way drug to right-leaning sanctimoniousness?

Hmm...well, possible feelings of moral and ethical superiority aside, it's more about not being the fat one at the wedding this summer! Ah it all comes down to fashion ... how shallow. Hey, the unexamined life isn't worth living, but the over-examined life -- well, that's just not living. It's all in the balance. And balance, as I just remarked this morning, is not my forte.

Tottenham is in the Carling Cup tomorrow. We're playing Chelsea but hey, "any given Sunday", right?

the white stuff

Woke up this morning to a snow-covered, rather urban idyll outside. It's mostly gone now but when I left for campus, the ground and the air were the same white. I like mornings like that - it's like pathetic fallacy: I feel like the whole outside world is coforming to the sticky, gauzy inside world of me before noon. Maybe it's the other way round - but it's Tuesday so I'll go with monomania. It's less stressful early in the week to believe I am the centre of everything. Doubt can seep in by Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday evening I'm awash with anxiety. But Tuesdays I shall keep holy for feeling on top of things - if only my little mole-hill.

It was another weekend of foodie-heaven: two meals, both unbelievably delicious and bringing together food, philosophy, laughter and the very best company. We had always heard longing, whispered tales of our friend's fried chicken - they didn't half do it justice. The trouble (or screaming bonus) with good food - good from living to killing to dressing to eating - is that it makes me keenly aware of the complete and utter scam played on diners by 95% of the food service industry. And, btw, that goes for vegetarian options as well - indeed, vegetarian 'alternatives' are generally the worst value-for-money on a menu. Luckily, Nas and I are surrounded by friends who are just as interested in (slightly manic about?) good food as we are - and, even better, are wonderful hosts of particularly discerning tables. I think often of Joseph Johnson's table in the 1790s, presided over by Fuseli's 'The Nightmare' hanging over the fire, and attended by the likes of John Thelwall, William Godwin, and Mary Wolstonecraft. We're that kind of smart. And pretty.


Does the world need my thoughts on eating meat? Not likely. I'm intrigued by the general discussions on the topic that I see and hear around me. Mostly I'm annoyed at the general assumption that someone who eats meat has done so without thought. I get stuck round this one - I agree in principle that the unexamined life is not worth living but gosh, what a pompous statement that is in some respects. And I'm justly (I think) irritated when anyone assumes that a choice that I make is not a choice but a habit. This is not to suggest that discussion cannot follow - I should be willing to defend my choices and to change my mind. That is, live a life constantly under examination.

That got away from me.

I've just bumped into a friend passing through the library who told me the most interesting thing of my day: the 'snow' this morning was not, indeed, the white stuff, but frozen fog. How bloody cool is that??

putting things in order

I have just finished clearing out old paperwork. There is nothing so depressing a old forms, notices, slips, receipts, letters, cards ... they create such a lot of MESS. Last year I had the bright idea of buying a hanging file-folder - as with most objects we buy to put what we already own in, it rapidly filled up and, by hiding what we already had, allowed us to accumulate more. Dastardly. It is those moments when - to paraphrase a childhood heroine - I am convinced of the depravity of inanimate objects. Our bank here insists on sending us a veritable novel each month - not just one, but one for each bloody account. Regardless of the fact that usually there is absolutely minimal movement from the accounts, each is detailed over a minimum of three pages. Over a year, that amounts to -- well, a whole bag of paper that has to be dragged to the office to go into the incinerator cause they've thoughtfully put my account number, sort code, and name on each piece. Then I remind myself that this is the same bank that sends out activated debit and credit cards - as our good friend discovered to her disadvantage. Honestly.

But the point is - it's all gone. Or at least displaced. Or deferred. Anyway, the box feels like a sanctified, organized space. Why on earth does clearing rubbish and achieving some small measure of order provide such psychological balm?

We're going for dinner at our good friends' place tonight - it occurs to me that I tend to refer to everyone I blog about as a 'good' friend. It's either a redundant phrase or a pleonasm. Anyone I think of as a friend is 'good' by definition. I mean, I can't really see my self describing someone a a 'so-so' friend. But then describing someone as an acquaintance sounds odd and 'colleague' sounds ridiculous outside of a professional context. But then, I don't consider the people I work with at the library 'colleagues' - likely, cause it's not my profession. And qualifying friends as 'work friends' just fragments my life too much. Then I have to start keeping columns and worrying about boundaries. I remember a friend back home saying jokingly, the first or second time I called to arrange to have a drink, that we were now 'phone buddies'. But were I to go out to the pub with the whole gang, there would be acquaintances and friends there - but I would relate the evening as a night out with friends, and include people I didn't know as well in that. I suppose because of shared space in both a physical and psychological/emotional space. I've just been reading about Judith Butler on kinship/family and remembering my own research into 18th century constructions of the term (via Naomi Tadmor and Ruth Perry and Jane Spencer) - and considering all that in terms of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, sorry for the digression....!

Dinner yes - to celebrate strange vegetables and our shared passion for cookbooks and food. I have a lovely collection of veg: squash, beetroot, rocket - and damn, just realised I'm out of cornmeal for the polenta I had invisaged. Back to shop.

Oh yes, and I have the OFFICIAL LETTER - I'm officially now Dr Kaley Kramer (PhD - Leeds). Damn ham. That sounds nice.

food blogging ...

I nearly forgot that last weekend was so great - and it's already this weekend. It makes me reflect, y'know, on the passing of time and, like, how it's so ... um ... fast ... Yea. That's it. Or something like.

The weeks are a bit packed - and I meant to post about last weekend but Monday got eaten up by Tuesday and so forth. So I find myself at Friday again, on the cusp of another weekend, having passed unreflectingly through five whole days.

Last weekend I finally had lunch at Anthony's - a gustatory ambition from a-way back. And it really did live up - for the most part. It was a celebratory lunch: the end of a promise between a good friend and I to treat ourselves if we ever finished the PhD. I had pork belly - it's my new thing - I had it in London at Bistroteque as well. For starters, we both had cauliflower veloute with Wensleydale and hazelnut oil. To be completely honest, it was caulifrower cheese redux. But hey, my usual dictum when dining out is to eat things that I wouldn't/couldn't make at home. Pretty much anything on Anthony's menus fulfill that! The pork belly was lean and the crackling crackling. To be honest, the crackling could have been improved - I'm not sure how - but then surely that is why I pay them the largish amounts of money for: to figure these things out. Wonderful stuff, crackling - but difficult, particularly in a formal setting, to eat without getting down-home about it all and using fingers and teeth. And I could have done with more than a smear of the lovely pureed sweet potato - though on a side-note pureeing is a bit naff in general. I mean, I have teeth. But hey, they are (as mentioned) clearly doing something right as I was willing to part with my (very very very) hard earned moneys ... Dessert: raspberry and basil sorbet - amazing. And, properly, left me wanting more but very pleasantly full. Ooh and we did splash on the wine: a deeeelightful and deeeeelucious chablis ...

But food bereft of company is a cold meal indeed - and the company was exactly the sort such a meal needed to keep it from being overly-formal and uncomfortably stuffy.

Then, that very night, we went over to our good friends' for food and cards (oh, and more wine!) ... And Sunday, with the help of new allotment mates, we got started on the garden - pictures will follow!

I'm pretty sure I had more to say. And it all sounded much more exciting in my head than written out like this ... Huh.

Sexy things

I am hungry and tired; not good things to be when dealing with THE PUBLIC.


I worked on my (very first!) lecture for two hours this morning. I'm not sure about it - I've never used PowerPoint and I can see how the temptation to but too much information up is there. I think I may already have seccumbed actually ... But it's all so fascinating. I need a snappier title; right now, I've just got: Revolution and Reaction: Treason and Plot in the 1790s - which is to-the-point but not very sexy at all. Perhaps I should replace some of the text with pictures? Maybe some maps. Maps are pretty and sexy - with all there 'ooh come and explore me' manner. It's a thought.


And Torchwood to look forward to tonight - it's like a massive train-wreck of a show: I just cannot look away regardless of how cringe-worthy it becomes. What will become of Cap'n Jack and his band of wandering supernatural vigilantes? Well, thankfully (or specifically, thanks to The Guardian's 'What to watch' section - nanny state! Ha!), I don't have to leave you in suspense, even if you live far far away and have to wait to watch:


Torchwood 9pm, BBC2

"Amid the snarling, shouting and awful, contrived sexual tension between Captain Pratt and the team, there's an interesting idea here - the consequences of leading a double life. Gwen, the moral centre of the show, considers said issue when her nice-but-dim boyfriend, Rhys, apparently one of the few Cardiff residents unaware of Torchwood's existence, discovers she's a member of the world's least secret top-secret organisation. That a giant telepathic alien manatee is involved should by no means discourage viewing."


I, for one, am not discouraged. I welcome such diversion after the intellectually draining day of trying to divine what library patrons actually want from out their garbled expressions of desire - or, even more fun, their sullen silence. If you aren't sure where you sit with the crazy Torchwood team and their time-hopping, alien-seducing behaviour - this review of a season 2 episode made me want to keep watching ...

Sundays are for rest

You would never think that Logan is covered, as most cats are, in fur: as soon as it gets the teeniest bit cold in the house, he parks his fur-covered self under the radiator in the bathroom and stays there the entire day. Nas put a bathmat there a couple days ago - Logan, as far as I can tell, will soon be demanding his meals upstairs. Laila, on the other hand, clearly has some residual memories of living outside and is much more properly gracious to her humans for her timely delivery from the elements. Thus, she prefers to be no fewer than three feet from one of us (preferably both) at any given time. Except her naps - though she does tend to wake up and come running down the stairs to check that someone is still around.

I'm baking bread this afternoon and putting off the last of my first batch of marking. For the record, I'm also currently procrastinating on finishing my 'supporting statement' for job applications, researching for an article due in April, turning my thesis into articles, reading for tomorrow's seminar on Romanticism, the laundry, and ... um ... dinner. In the success column for today, however, we have: slept in with minimal guilt resulting, ate cake for breakfast without increasing guilt, washed dishes including pots and cutlery, thought seriously about attack-strategy for CV while washing dishes, and caught up with news (okay, on FB ... but still ...). Oh I also looked outside and got so annoyed with the greyness that I spent about half an hour searching the interwebs for a cheap flight out of here. For the record, I need to update my understanding of 'cheap' when considering 'international travel'.

There is a massive difference, I've discovered, between teaching 8 students and teaching 30. I can see how that observation ranks up there with finally understanding the difference between swimming in a pool and swimming in a lake - and I mean a black water kind of lake. I guess my seminars at Queen's were nearing 30 students, but the best ones only had about 13-17. Or do I only remember 17 people? How horrible. I'm sure the very best seminar ever only had about 12-13 of us. Every seminar I teach is an attempt to recapture Dr Pat Rae's 1997/8 Modernism seminar at Queen's University. Runner up is Dr Asha Varadharajan's post-modern North America seminar (must have been 1997/8 as well) - but less for the overall experience than her teaching, which I loved. And, of course, I was spoiled (and ignorant of the privilege at the time) in taking American lit from Prof. Jed Rasula. But I think it is a good thing that I haven't managed to come near those experiences of superior pedagogues: I've only been teaching for three years. Surely it would be a very bad sign to hit my apex three years into my career! Anyway, I've been assured that I'll never have all 30 show up again - which is a strange consolation.

But I've put off everything long enough for today ... and I'm hungry.