You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2008.
My friend and coworker Monica has given me something to smile about this morning. Under settings in Facebook, you can change the language to “English (pirate),” which is terribly amusing. Apparently, last Friday was Talk Like a Pirate Day and I missed it. This more than makes up for it.
So far this week has been good, but so busy with work. We’re on deadline and lots of work is coming in at the last minute. Dare I say it’s exciting? Not really, but it’s better than being bored.
This weekend, my wonderful husband accompanied me to a poetry reading with Hank Lazer, Charles Bernstein (who has published 40+ books!), and Marjorie Perloff (who used to be the president of MLA) at the university where I teach. The reading was so-so and, apparently, the previous day’s event (that I couldn’t go to because I was at work) was much better, filled with lively discussion of craft and literature. I would have much prefered to go to that, but it was nice to hear poetry read aloud, and I’m thankful that Adam went even though it’s not his cup of tea. Afterward, we went home, drank chianti, ate chocolate cake, and watched Baby Mama. It was a lovely night.
I finished watching Desperate Housewives (anyone else not pleased with last season’s ending?) and, finally, The Sopranos. I had heard that the ending of Sopranos left something to be desired, and it’s true. I’m glad I was expecting it, or I would have been mighty upset.
Today, I am filled with hope, despite intermittent sleep last night. October will be here in just one itty, bitty week. Autumn, I love you.
Well, I haven’t been blogging much because not much has been going on. With Adam in school four nights a week in addition to working his already crazy schedule, and me working my day job and teaching on the side, we hardly see each other and when we do, we’re exhausted. Often I’m so tired at the end of the day, I’m lucky if I can get out the door for a run or make it through 10 pages of a book. We’re also monetarily challenged (school is expensive!), so no fun adventures for us. For now.
Now that we’re in the thick of things (this week marks five weeks into the semester), I realize this is going to be a tough year and a half of Adam going to school. I have to constantly remind myself that this is but a moment in our lifetime together, and it will help us achieve some of our most important goals. But it’s a constant struggle, and I don’t want to be a whiner, especially not in this blog. So, the blogging has been intermittent, and will most likely continue to be.
Thankfully, it has been cooler. I hate that all of our windows are painted shut, so we can’t enjoy the cool evening breeze while we sleep. But, each morning this week as I’ve stepped out the door, I’ve been thankful that the extreme heat is over and summer is winding down. Autumn has always been my favorite time of year, and I have so many positive associations with the weather change. It’s quite invigorating for my spirit.
We have spent another weekend being extraordinarily lazy, which I am insisting is not a bad thing. For two people as busy as Adam and I are these days, we deserve some R & R. Unfortunately, I had a pile of papers to grade, but was pleasantly surprised at how well written most of them are. I am so grateful for a class I can enjoy. Honestly, I didn’t know teaching could be so good.
We did manage to get in a long walk, and I ran four miles and swam laps at the Y. I read a lot of Kathleen Norris’s Amazing Grace, which I’ve been taking in small bites, and watched too much Desperate Housewives, which came on DVD from Blockbuster. But I say, it’s the weekend and we can do whatever we want — sleep in and take long naps, eat ice cream any time of day, make up theme songs for our pets, whatever.
I am sad to see the devastation from Ike, and even sadder to hear that the biggest hurricane search and rescue mission ever is going on for all the people who didn’t evacuate Galveston. Mostly, I am glad the hurricane wasn’t near us, and I pray that the storms will slow until we can get through November.
On a separate note, I am so glad to see Tina Fey play Sarah Palin on SNL last night. There is an uncanny resemblance.
I admit it. Today has been one of those days, aka. a bad day, and for no apparent reason. I’m overtired, cranky, moody, and irrational. I had a big cry during lunch, which made me feel better but not relieved. You know, when you have a good cry and, at the end, the clouds part and life doesn’t seem so bad? That didn’t happen. Thankfully, I have a patient husband and a friend who I’m meeting at Barnes & Noble later to drink cafe au lait, speak French (which I haven’t done since 10th grade, and she’s a French major), and peruse the bookfloor. Right now, that sounds heavenly.
I’ve decided that ultimately I’d like to have a job that doesn’t keep me tied to the computer all day. I’m not anticomputer, by any means, but I get tired of spending my workdays doing work part of the day and surfing the net trying to fill downtime. And since my boss told me that I should just look around on the internet and act busy even when I’m not, I’ve been sentenced to 40 hours of computer time no matter what. I felt particularly bad after reading this NY Times article about social networking and constructing relationships, mostly because I spend my workdays checking Facebook periodically and peeking at blogs. So, today, I’m trying to check Facebook less and I pared down the feeds on my Google Reader, hoping to somehow inspire a more active approach to finding information on the internet.
I also decided that I need to sign up for the sewing class I found in the parks and recreation schedule. It runs Mondays, 6-8, from October 6 to November 17, just in time for my dad to arrive. By then I should have learned how to use my sewing machine without wasting ridiculous amounts of thread and made a garment from a pattern (of up to five pieces). I was hesitating about whether I should take the class, but I realized that about a month ago that doing crafty projects makes me happy. Plus, I really would like to learn how to sew (simple) clothes.
I had the most lazy and relaxing weekend. I didn’t do anything Saturday but go for a three mile run and watch a marathon of House on the USA network. I laid on the couch and napped and was generally useless. It was great. Sunday, Adam and I walked to church, then christened the first weekend of football with more naps and general laziness. I did manage to get the laundry and grocery shopping done, a few things ready for class (though I still have to some loose ends to tie up before tonight), and squeezed in another run. Lately, the weekends seem made for laziness and rest.
Our house is a mess, but even tidying it only keeps it clean for about a day because living is messy. I must have told Adam a million times that our next home needs more storage space, which is a huge part of our problem. We have no closets and an attic we can’t access easily. We also don’t have a garage. In New York, everyone had a garage and a basement, which is where undaily clutter (like bikes and boxes and lawn equipment) was kept. Here, everything is exposed, including a pile of boxes in the guest room filled with things we occasionally need to access and can’t be tucked away in our attic. When my dad comes to visit, that’s the room where he’ll stay, with boxes and junk. It’s not very welcoming.
I found my favorite professor from my undergrad on Facebook, and he left me this message last night:
FYI, I think of you almost every time I get dressed. “Lindsay McCann’s Principle of Anterior Symmetry” is what I call it. That is, your belt buckle must align with your shirt buttons and your fly.
I swear, I must have laughed for a good 15 minutes after reading that.
Bye, Bye, Autumn, 2. Autumn’s Bounty, 3. Missing Autumn, 4. No, I want no autumn!, 5. pumpkins, 6. AUTUMN IN IRELAND
I know I said this before, but I am just absolutely itching for autumn. Today, I even wore a light sweater (which is fine in the cold, office airconditioning, but not great in the 85 degree heat outside). I can’t wait for October for cooler weather and my birthday, and November because my dad is coming for a visit. He just bought tickets today, so it’s official. He’ll be here for two weeks.
By the time my dad gets here, the fall semester will almost be over. I’m really enjoying my class and the university where I teach this semester. Teaching for an hour and 15 minutes is not as draining as those marathon five-hour sessions over the summer. Also, I really enjoy my class and look forward to seeing them Tuesday and Thursday nights. Their first essays are due next week — should be interesting to see what kind of writers they really are.
The kitty is growing so fast, and Penny is increasingly jealous of Adam or me giving her any attention. I keep telling Adam this is what it’ll be like when our second child is born, though I’m thinking it might be this way with our first if Penny behaves anything like this.
Tonight, we’re going out to dinner for either burgers or barbeque — we haven’t decided yet, but I’m already starving. Adam is working all weekend, so I’ll be busy cleaning the house, preparing for next week’s classes, and doing various odds and ends. Have a lovely weekend, and may visions of autumn dance in your heads.
Last night, I walked out of class and the sky had darkened already. Perhaps, in spite of the hurricanes and tropical storms, autumn really is upon us. Of course, it’s still 85 degrees or more every day and the humidity is enough to make your hair curl, but there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s name is autumn.
It turns out Adam isn’t leaving. He received notice yesterday, just before getting ready to leave, that the deployment was canceled. I had left work early to spend some extra time with him, which certainly wasn’t wasted, but turned out to be unnecessary. And even though we could use the extra money he would have made, I’m glad he’s staying home. His class even ended early last night, so he was home at 8 o’clock. We got in our jammies, pulled the bed out of the guest room into the living room, and fell asleep watching Friends. I wish every night was like that.
I have a quite a bit to accomplish before class tomorrow, including grading paragraphs and figuring out turnitin.com, a website that supposedly knows when a paper (or parts of it) is plaigarized. I’m planning on doing most of this while I watch the season premier of America’s Next Top Model (my guilty, guilty pleasure).
Thankfully, this short week is close to being finished. I’ve reread Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” which I have in plain view at my desk, several times today. Some days, it helps keep everything in perspective. I highly recommend it to anyone who sits a desk all day.
I realized when I came to work today that I haven’t posted in almost a week. Over the weekend, our internet access was sketchy because of the storm and our unreliable cable provider, so I didn’t bother trying to post (it’s gone out in the middle of a post before, leaving all my work unsaved).
Thankfully, we made it through the weekend and through the storm. Sunday night, while Adam worked, I gathered up the dog and the cat and went to Lesley’s to sleep. Penny was nervous and annoying all night, and I hardly slept a wink. But we watched The Bank Job and drank decaf hazelnut coffee and made the best of it. That night, it barely rained. I spent the night on the off chance that Hurricane Gustav might jog to the east and hit us harder than we anticipated first thing in the morning. Instead, it was barely sprinkling in the morning, so I packed everyone and went home to be with Adam. We spent the day sleeping and watching movies and baseball games. We also watched a lot of rain fall and our street flood so high Adam had to move the truck to higher ground.
Today, I feel like a zombie, still tired from all the hubbub. I’m back at work and Adam is shopping for all the perishable, refrigerated items we didn’t have in case we lost power. He is also getting ready to be deployed to Mississippi or Louisiana for two weeks to help with the aftermath of the storm. By the time I return from teaching tonight, he’ll be gone. And, yes, I have to teach, even though every other school and college in the area is closed.
Here’s to the calm after the storm and a short work week. Let’s hope it’s a good one.
