Professional Mirror, Ph.D.

Status updates I would post on Facebook if I were not self-conscious about being a maudlin bore

2010-06-20T21:46:00.000-04:00

Medusa hides in surfaces.

Medusa pays her karmic debts.

Medusa keeps setting her dead father's watch to Eastern Standard Time and it always always goes back one hour within a day. It keeps perfect Central Standard Time. Only.

Medusa will always have not Paris.

Medusa at the very least showed up for this one.

Farms in Arizona

2010-06-19T10:55:00.000-04:00

Farms in Arizona? Did I ask that question before, during, or after the dream? I found her, that was certain. My mother waiting in a 1960s car, in 1960s clothes. (How Freudian. How Atwood.) Her, there, waiting--hat, patent leather bag, white gloves--waiting in antiquated, animated impatience. But I was there and I could drive her through the gate. But I had to open that gate, that gate that kept closing. And it was hot, the end of a summer day, sun low over the fields. Farms in Arizona?

On bailing

2010-02-14T21:55:00.002-05:00

In perverse honor of Valentine's Day, I am thinking about people who bail, who run, who seemingly abandon the people they love right at the very moments those people need them most. You know the idea that in times of crisis you learn who your real friends are? It is completely flawed. People run. People shut their eyes and their hearts and run as fast as they can from your pain. And this is precisely because that person who runs as fast as she possibly can run loves you and cannot bear your pain any more than you can. Our ideas about loyalty and responsibility and sticking by those we love are largely bullshit.

It takes a certain kind of relationship or a certain kind of person to stay. I stay by my father's side during his illness because he is my father and because my very being--whatever that being is, emotions or bones--breaks at the idea of him being in pain and alone. The person who sticks by my side through this, though, can only be a person (I truly believe) who has been through this and who furthermore knows what to do. The person who loves me and who witnesses this kind of pain in me and has no experience with seeing a very close loved one suffering and dying, maybe that person runs for her life. To survive. To breathe. To laugh. To live. To stave off this kind of knowledge. Who can understand human suffering? Who can try to understand it and not go insane?

I am no longer trying to understand my father's suffering. I am just trying to be there to witness it. To be with him so that he is not alone in it. And I am also beginning to understand why someone would bail out on being a witness to my witnessing. The idea that she would stay if she loved me? It's bullshit. I am angry and hurt and I feel alone, but I believe in the beauty of bailing and the love that may or may not be behind it. I do. Run and breathe and laugh and love and live. Bail.

Wow

2010-02-13T19:40:00.000-05:00

This is . . . wow.

This week's wardrobe inspired by rage

2010-02-08T20:14:00.000-05:00

I am enraged about most things most of the time these days. Enraged. I am not at all comfortable with rage. Sure, I am happy to rage against the hegemonic machine on a daily basis and to recruit others to do the same. But rage against circumstances in my life that I cannot control--illness, loss, separation, watching people I love suffer and others disappear entirely--this rage is unbearable and I do not know what to do with it.

So what do I do? Mostly I withdraw. Also, though, I comfort those I can when I can. I teach. I do my work. I listen to a lot of music. I think about falling in love, being in love. I think about being in Paris. I look at pretty pictures and I play dress-up.

For you, a song I listen to every day these days and some lovely pictures of people I am trying to look like these days.

Well hello there

2009-10-05T12:31:00.002-04:00

The tenure year turned out to be the year that I abandoned the blog completely. But I miss it! I am thinking of revamping the blog or perhaps starting a new one.

I am still most definitely Dr. Medusa, but this description--A single assistant professor with a tenure-track job in the humanities, a Southern family, a 900-square-foot garret perched atop a crowded American city, and a renegade gaze aimed at books, booze, bassists, movies, making out, style sweet style, teaching, tenure, writing, and all things narcissistic--needs some tweaking. While I am still happily perched in my Northern garret most of the time, The Someone and I are living a split Mason-Dixon existence between two crowded American cities. And I am no longer an assistant professor!!!! OMG. Tenure. Whoa. It still has not sunk in completely, but some things were just immediately different. In some ways, I didn't have to process the difference for a moment and I hit the tenure ground running.

My most important news to share: my father, who has been desperately ill, is doing much better and the prognosis is hopeful. I was able to spend an entire summer with him. It was a terribly difficult time but an amazing time and at moments just lovely and simple and joyful.

So I'm back and planning to be back, in some form, for a good long while.

Poetry Friday, Lorca

2009-06-12T22:21:00.004-04:00

Replica

Only a single bird
is singing.
The air is cloning it.
We hear through mirrors.

I discovered a book of Lorca poems, Suites, last week in Paris in Shakespeare & Co. "Replica" is in a series of poems called "Mirror Suites." The whole collection, reassembled from notebooks after Lorca's death, is amazing.

Paris. I feel like I may not ever quite be able to catch my breath entirely again. I had never been. I found it to be stupefyingly, achingly, and almost frighteningly beautiful. Sublime. Sublimity itself.

My father is suddenly, unexpectedly very sick. I am leaving for the Deep Red as soon as possible to be with him. I am scared. Send all of your prayers, vibes, mojo, or whatever you can his way.

Dr. Medusa, Associate Professor of Gorgon Awesomeness

2009-04-30T21:05:00.002-04:00

Excuse the blatant horn tooting. It's been a long hard ride. (Secret message to Idiot Wind: GAME OVER. Hah!!!!)

Quick Medusa Update

2009-04-26T09:51:00.008-04:00

Tenure: I still do not know. All good on all fronts so far but I still do not know. You cannot imagine how frustrating this is. This has been the most stressful process and the most agonizing year, in this regard.
Real Housewife of Atlanta: The Someone got a tenure-track job in the Southland. This is wonderful and exciting news and a brilliant coup in a market that is temperamental on its best days and was, as many of you know, downright beastly this year. This also means we'll be having a Mason-Dixon romance and maintaining residences in two cities. Yes, we need your advice and wisdom.
Wardrobe: I have just over a month to make some very important fashion choices for my Grand European Tour. Actually, it's just a conference and then a few days in London and a few days in Paris. I'll take it! I have to a) look fabulous at all times; b) be comfortable; and c) pack lightly. This is going to be VERY DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE. I will be posting two This Week's European Wardrobe posts: the fantasy one and the practical one. Maybe I'll come out somewhere in between.
Random obsessions of these past months: The Someone, Facebook, Wii Fit, Leo Babauta's The Power of Less, trips to New York (and Uniqlo, Brooklyn Industries, cocktails with fabulous former students, too salty salt bagels on hungover mornings, missing the bus to drink Lambrusco in Little Italy), Sober House, Bon Iver, Tom Tykwer, cyborgs, and Marcuse.

Triumphant return to the blog and full post to follow soon.

Pssst . . .

2009-04-05T17:57:00.004-04:00

I am gearing up to make a triumphant-ish return to the blog. Is anyone still reading? I have interesting news, including what I plan to wear while I am in Paris in June and how I am might just become a Real Housewife of Atlanta (see graph) even if I do get tenure.

Wishing everyone a beautiful and prosperous new year

2009-01-02T11:29:00.006-05:00

I made it to the MLA about 31 hours and many a Heineken after setting out for San Francisco. It was well worth it. I am back in the Deep Red for too many days before I reunite with The Someone at home and get to work on a new semester and a new year.

I have made a few resolutions. Last year's comical and purposely simple promise to do some "light stretching" worked out really well. It turned out to be more of a prophetic understatement than a resolution, as my life expanded in amazing and wonderful ways. This year I resolve to:

1. Say sweet things to self, rather than mean and nasty and self-defeating things
2. Become catlike in ability to get as much sleep as necessary (nap at will)
3. Develop ballerina-like posture--head up, shoulders back, chest forward (pirouette when and where appropriate)

So basically I will be a sweet-talking feline ballerina in 2009. I like it.

Observations from the road

2008-12-26T17:09:00.004-05:00

The airlines are seriously totally utterly broken.
Heineken is yummy.
I miss The Someone so very very much.
Wild Turkey is cheaper than Heineken in certain Southern states.
So is Jim Beam.
I can no longer not own an iPhone. Seriously. The desire, it is strong.
Nancy Grace is obsessed with missing and dead children.
America needs a jeans makeover.
Why not be drunk upon arrival to the MLA? Why not?
This plane might actually depart at 6 p.m., with a delay of a mere six hours and fifteen minutes.
My nieces and my nephew are awesome.
My longing for The Someone occurs, I am convinced, on a molecular level.
I wonder what would happen if I switched from Heineken to Wild Turkey.
Or Jim Beam.

Law of conservation of online energy

2008-12-07T13:26:00.004-05:00

I (like almost everyone else in the world wide world) seem to be spending most of my online time on Facebook these days. I am not giving up the blog. I do foresee blogging again regularly in the very near future, especially when knowing one way or the other about tenure is not consuming my imagination and when not talking about it ceases to be a near impossible and energy-sucking feat. In the meantime, if you are on Facebook and want to friend me, please feel free! If you do not know my real name, just email me at doctormedusa at gmail dot com.

Good luck to everyone with the end of the semester, various levels of grading imprisonment, job search mania and depression, promotions, babies, holidays, books, travel, and staying warm and happy and sane but not too sane.

Layer Meme

2008-11-24T20:43:00.001-05:00

Seen everyone, most recently at Life of a Fool . . .

LAYER ONE:
* Name: Medusa
* Birthday: June
* Birthplace: Jersey
* Current location: Crowded American City
* Eye color: Blue
* Hair color: Blond
* Height: 5'4"
* Righty or lefty: Righty
* Zodiac sign: Cancer

LAYER TWO:
* Your heritage: Irish, French, Cherokee, Cheyenne
* The shoes you wore today: My fake Chloe boots
* Your weakness: Television, junk food, expensive trips to the salon
* Your fears: Boredom, failure, pity (being the object of), large concrete objects in water (yeah, no idea)
* Your perfect pizza: The #10 here
* Goals you’d like to achieve: The death drive is preventing me from answering this question.

LAYER THREE:
* Your most overused phrase on AIM: Yo or howdy
* Your first waking thoughts: Chihuahua
* Your best physical feature: Lips, body, the Medusa hair when it is in its full Medusa glory
* Your most missed memory: Can't recall. HA!

LAYER FOUR:
* Pepsi or Coke: Diet Coke
* McDonald’s or Burger King: When I ate fast food, which was mostly when I was a kid, McDonald's. I still occasionally indulge in some fries or a shake, especially when on a Chinatown bus, and I still prefer McDonald's.
* Single or group dates: Single
* Adidas or Nike: Asics
* Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Earl Grey
* Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla. I am one of those strange few people in the world who does not like the taste of chocolate.
* Cappuccino or coffee: Cappuccino, if available

LAYER FIVE:
* Smoke: Camel Lights with Johnny Depp, but only while lucid dreaming (as of July 2005)
* Cuss: Fuck yes. I suspected this was a Southern meme with the iced tea question. Now I know it is.
* Sing: Of course. Who doesn't sing?
* Take a shower everyday: Obv
* Do you think you’ve been in love: Absolutely
* Want to go to college: Usually
* Liked high school: "Like" is a strong word but my experience was far from horrible.
* Want to get married: Depends on the day you ask me
* Believe in yourself: Setting aside some very complicated notions of subjectivity . . .but of course!!
* Get motion sickness: No
* Think you’re attractive: Yes
* Think you’re a health freak: No, but I can become very obsessive about exercise when I have time to exercise.
* Get along with your parent(s): Yes
* Like thunderstorms: I love them. The Chalupa **hates** them, which has complicated my love of them.
* Play an instrument: None well, but: piano, guitar, cowbell, and for a short time in the 5th grade, a viola.

LAYER SIX: In the past month…
* Drank alcohol: Yes
* Smoked: No
* Done a drug: No
* Made out: Yes
* Gone on a date: Yes
* Gone to the mall: Yes
* Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No, though the Golden Oreo is manna from heaven.
* Eaten sushi: No
* Been on stage: Yes
* Been dumped: No
* Gone skating: No
* Made homemade cookies: Yes
* Gone skinny dipping: In my bathtub
* Dyed your hair: No
* Stolen Anything: Kisses

LAYER SEVEN: Ever…
* Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes
* Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Extremely
* Been caught “doing something”: Yes
* Been called a tease: Yes
* Gotten beaten up: Yes--in a street fight.
* Shoplifted: No
* Changed who you were to fit in: See complicated notions of subjectivity.

LAYER EIGHT:
* Age you hope to be married: Is layer eight the heteronormativity layer?
* Numbers and names of children: The Someone and I have about a dozen imaginary children, all of whom are taken care of by imaginary nannies. Some of them are: Blind Faith Biff and Bad Faith Biff (the twins), Fung Wah Baby, Fifty-One Cent, Morpheus and Neo and Trinity (the triplets), and Calamari
* Describe your dream wedding: This is annoying.
* How do you want to die: At my dream wedding
* Where you want to go to college: Wherever I am tenured
* What do you want to be when you grow up: Happy
* What country would you most like to visit: Czech Republic. I have had a strange and overwhelming desire to visit Prague for a while now.

LAYER NINE:
* Number of drugs taken illegally: I went to college in the 80s.
* Number of people I could trust with my life: At least six
* Number of CDs that I own: I have 2775 songs on my iPod.
* Number of piercings: Nine
* Number of tattoos: None. This is still somewhat unbelievable to me.
* Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: Hmmm. . . good question. I have no idea.
* Number of scars on my body: Three small ones
* Number of things in my past that I regret: Five big ones--one involving a decision, one involving a responsibility, one involving a betrayal, one involving a refusal, and one involving a man. Beyond that, none.

p.s. and a return to poetry friday

2008-11-21T09:19:00.004-05:00

p.s. Maggie May asked, regarding the poll, if there was something she had missed. No, I know nothing of the tenure decision yet. Just planning escape routes in the meantime. Thanks to everyone who did the poll! Votes can still be tallied and results are in the pie chart on the sidebar. Bartender/poet/novelist and Alpaca farmer are closely tied, so I figure I can raise llamas, write poems and novels, AND tend bar. The trick is figuring out how to do all four in Manhattan, my city of choice, though going pastoral is always an option.

Speaking of which, the lack of poetry around here on Fridays is a pitiful thing that needs to be remedied right now. Some Kit Marlowe for you and the lovely lovely The Someone--

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

Come live with mee, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Vallies, groves, hills and fieldes,
Woods, or steepie mountaine yeeldes.

And wee will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Sheepheards feede theyr flocks,
By shallow Rivers, to whose falls,
Melodious byrds sing Madrigalls.
And I will make thee beds of Roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Imbroydred all with leaves of Mirtle.
A gowne made of the finest wooll,
Which from our pretty Lambes we pull,

Fayre lined slippers for the cold:
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw, and Ivie buds,
With Corall clasps and Amber studs,
And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with mee, and be my love.
The Sheepheards Swaines shall daunce and sing,
For thy delight each May-morning.
If these delights thy minde may move;
Then live with mee, and be my love.

A poll

2008-11-18T21:43:00.002-05:00

Survey Results - GlowDay.com

All she wrote

2008-11-17T12:18:00.008-05:00

I do know how to write a dramatic subject line, don't I? No, it's not all over in terms of the tenure stuff, my career, etc. Or if it is I do not know and will not know for many moons. I do know a pathologically narcissistic sociopath is involved, so, you know, I am not feeling as secure as one might (as if one might even feel secure under any circumstances during this process, as ozma tragi-hilariously describes here).

Anyway . . ."all she wrote" as in I am, as of this morning, done done done DONE writing (and sending) job applications. I am done done done DONE writing about myself and what I've done and why I am good at what I do and why I do what I do and why I want to do what I do and why I deserve to keep doing what I am doing and what makes me an ideal candidate for blah blah blah blah blah blah fuckity blah. Umpteen job letters on top of the 500-page portfolio? Yeah. All she wrote. Really not so much up for representing myself in grand and great detail for a good long time after this. A little of this type of writing is okay, even affirming. Months and months and pages and pages of it? Not so much. Done, I say.

Of course, this will make it indeed awkward if I do get a job interview, because I swear to god I might say something like, "Yes, well, normally I really would like to say a little bit more about my teaching style and the connections between my research and teaching and where my research is going, but would ya'll mind if we talked about something other than me? For instance, that Badiou. Non-universal universals? Interesting stuff, right? Or True Blood, that new vampire show on HBO? OOOH! Or Mad Men?!? How broody is that Jon Hamm? Right? Hey, are you on Facebook?".

Which reminds me, it is about that time of year for many of us to watch the brilliance that is this.

In which I continue to scrutinize myself using only the most current and accurate self-assessment tools

2008-11-13T20:07:00.001-05:00

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

HBDS - The Commander

Humanity, Background, Detail, and Shape

You perceive the world with particular attention to humanity. You focus on the hidden treasures of life (the background) and how that is affected by the details of life. You are also particularly drawn towards the shapes around you. Because of the value you place on humanity, you tend to seek out other people and get energized by being around others. You like to ponder ideas and imagine the many possibilities of your life without worrying about the details or specifics. You are highly focused on specific goals or tasks and find meaning in life by pursuing those goals. You prefer a structured environment within which to live and you like things to be predictable.

The Perception Personality Types:

Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy

In which I start to do a bunch of old memes because I cannot talk about how an Idiot Wind if trying to blow me down

2008-11-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

Your result for The Classic Dames Test...

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 19% grit, 24% wit, 38% flair, and 26% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

Take The Classic Dames Test at HelloQuizzy

Tomorrow is a big day

2008-11-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

Send Medusa the good vibes.

Woot Woot Woot Woot!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-04T23:11:00.001-05:00

Hell yes.

Medusa's losing it

2008-11-01T13:45:00.006-04:00

Going up for tenure +
applying for 35 jobs +
teaching three jam-packed couress +
advising umpteen thousand majors +
writing umpteen hundred recommendations for students +
serving on multiple committees+
running a new lecture series+
writing a panel proposal for a major conference +
prepping for a friggin interview with the tenure committee (have you ever heard of such a thing? the 500-page binder wasn't enough?) +
a way overdue revise and resubmit gathering dust on my desk +
the collection I am editing

= An exhausted stress ball called me

Tell me it's going to be okay.

Happy Halloween from la Chalupa and friend

2008-10-31T09:54:00.002-04:00

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-10-22T12:25:00.004-04:00

I am happy to be back in the season of layers. Each day is basically a question of whether to go with the Swedish street urchin, citified woodland creature, or Parisian fashionaut look, each of which is represented below.

How much do I want the above vest and boots?? Muchly.

I am pretty sure I wore this exact outfit, complete with white sunglasses, in 1992. Still like it.

The silhouette. The touch of dark purple. The shoes.

Every time I wear an outfit like the above I feel like Puck or Robin Hood. That doesn't stop me.

Not represented here (surprisingly) is my current hair inspiration/obsession. My ambition to be as blond as is Medusaly possible remains strong. In fact, given that I spend so much time a) reading Scandinavian fashion blogs, and b) staring at photographs of Kate Lamphear, it's a small miracle that my hair is not completely devoid of color by this point. I consider this platinum drive to be a reverse manifestation of the same psychological phenomenon that led me to dye my hair darker and darker and darker until I achieved the blackest of black just after I defended my dissertation and graduated. In other words, it has something to do with That Which Will Not Be Discussed.

The Thing

2008-10-19T21:14:00.014-04:00

Voilà. The tenure application. Submitted and under review. I have become silent on the blog, because a) I do not know how to talk about the process; b) I do not think it is a good idea to talk about the process; c) I think talking about the process here would drive you INSANE; and d) I think talking about the process here would drive me insane.

Suffice it to say, it's not a done deal and there are some political obstacles. I won't know for quite some time. When I do, I will let you know. Until then, I want to blog. But can we agree to keep The Thing a big fat silent elephant on the blog? I promise to post about fashion and poems and runes and chihuahuas and love sweet love. Wish me luck, keep your fingers and toes crossed, and then let's talk about something more pleasant like the economy or Sarah Palin or the gout or . . .=)

Serious business

2008-08-28T21:05:00.003-04:00

I have dropped off the edge of the earth in order to finish finish what feels like the biggest and most important project of my life, The Thing (i.e. the tenure and promotion binder). Wish me luck! See you in October or thereabouts.

Seven Songs of the Summer of Chaos and Joy

2008-08-17T15:45:00.006-04:00

I am kind of refusing to believe that the Summer of Chaos and Joy is coming to an end, but a) the deadline for The Thing (a.k.a my giant binder of tenure and promotion materials) looms; b) institutional demands are making it more and more impossible to claim to people I do not want to see that I am in Prague until Labor Day; and c) nearly everyone on the interwebs and Facebook is reminding me that we are in the last charmed days of the season.

Once I get The Thing done (my self-imposed deadline for the master copy of it is August 27), I will actually be excited about moving toward the Autumn of Chaos and Joy. The boots! The sweaters! My students! Fall excursions with The Someone! The Someone! In sweaters! It's all too delicious.

But until then I am going to revel in the vestiges of the summer and also finally share its soundtrack, prompted by a meme Caro tagged me for a thousand years (or so) ago . . .

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Tag seven others to see what they're listening to.

1. "Blindsided," Bon Iver, from the fantastic and amazing For Emma Forever Ago, which I discovered in May during my separation from The Someone and which is good both for times of angst and times of joy.

2. "Viva La Vida," Coldplay. This song was playing in my head virtually all of the time during the month of June right up until the date of the album release. How did they do that?

3. "Oh My Sweet Carolina," Ryan Adams. The album Heartbreaker is an old favorite but is now forever associated with The Someone, as we listened to it on one of our first dates.

4. "What Ever Happened," The Strokes. I am the only person I know who loves the film Marie Antoinette without reservation. I obsessively listened to the soundtrack this Spring. This song made it out of the loop into my regular summer mix, because of two lyrics: "I want to be forgotten and I don't want to be reminded," which has to do with tenure and being under scrutiny, etc.; and "I want to be beside her; she wants to be admired," the first part of which I like to mishear and inaccurately sing at the top of my lungs as "I want to be besotted" (as in wildly drunk with love) and all of which for various reasons, including the fact that I am wildly drunkenly in love, now reminds me of The Someone.

5. "Idiot Wind," Bob Dylan. I realize the song has problems. It's long. It's nasally. It's misogynistic. But for me it somehow works as a magic talisman to ward off the suffocating evil of the Idiot Wind with whom I work.

6. Spirit, Willie Nelson. I gave this album to my father for Father's Day this year. He loves it. I hear it is also Willie's favorite of his records. It reminds me of Austin, one of my favorite places on the planet.

7. "In Love with a Girl," Gavin DeGraw. Heh.

Not going to tag but go for it if you so desire or did not get around to it the first time.

Poetry Friday, Carol Ann Duffy

2008-08-08T16:44:00.003-04:00

The Love Poem

Till love exhausts itself, longs
for the sleep of words--
           my mistress' eyes--
to lie on a white sheet, at rest
in the language--
            let me count the ways--
or shrink to a phrase like an epitaph--
           come live
with me--
or fall from its own high cloud as syllables
in a pool of verse--
           one hour with thee.

Till love gives in and speaks
in the whisper of art--
           dear heart,
how like you this?-
love's lips pursed to quotation marks
kissing a line--
           look in thy heart
and write--
love's light fading, darkening,
black as ink on a page--
           there is a garden
in her face.

How lucky am I to have found the love of my life?

I am brilliant

2008-08-06T14:53:00.004-04:00

Found a nice surprise from khora upon peeking out from my blogging vacay

Belated thanks, khora!

And now I shall confer some brilliance to my own brilliant peeps, who may or may not have already have been awarded during my shameful blogging absence. If you have, bask in the supplemental glory!

The rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

The Brilliant List:

Artichoke Heart
ozma
Heidi of Hick Chic
Dr. Crazy, of course
The lovely and uncool Caro
Emily at the Seacoast of Bohemia
Wol at Fortes Fortuna Lector

Lazy crazy busy blogger (& please tell me to do my work)

2008-07-26T18:56:00.003-04:00

Found the Lazy Blogger Post Generator via Luckybuzz. Awesome:

"Abject apologies. I just opened mine eyes, and lo! I have not updated this since I fell in love... You would not believe the fairy dust I have to clean up. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

I am absolutely consumed with setting fire to people wearing Crocs, waiting for the onshore winds, just generally being a delightful mistress to society in general. My day is a magical flight from midday to when I run out of alcohol. I am smitten. Deal with it.

I make a solemn vow I will update you with my nefarious activities as soon as I get a chance. Fully! Seriously?"

New #1 on the WWMD** list

2008-07-15T20:16:00.003-04:00

HVAC repair.

I did not have that $700 to spend.

No, no I did not.

No indeedy.

Not at all.

**What Will Medusa Do for a career if she does not get tenure.

A long overdue this week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-07-12T11:50:00.001-04:00

I feel like my wardrobe choices during the summer are less than inspired. There are a few reasons for this: a) If I am not teaching or showing up to a place every day, I tend not to make as much of an effort; b) It's hot, dudes; and c) My money is being spent on travel and dinners out and summery cocktails and not on clothes that I can only wear a maximum of three months out of the year.

As I result, I tend to wear little dresses and flip-flops every day. A variation on this theme is a little dress and slouchy suede boots. Another variation is jeans and a top at night, sometimes with heels, though I am still looking for the perfect high-heeled sandal.

Because I am the superficial gorgon that I am, I start to feel out of sorts when I fall into this summer style rut, so I shall try to spice it up a bit with more varied and interesting silhouettes and a no flip-flop rule, in the evenings at the very least. This will of course require that I find the perfect beautiful yet walkable sandal, but I think not much more of an investment than that. Oh. And fabulous hair, which is ever in the works.

Poetry Friday, Carol Ann Duffy

2008-07-11T12:08:00.003-04:00

You

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.

For a lovely amazing breathtaking exquisite T.S.

Back

2008-07-09T16:09:00.005-04:00

And pretty much intact. I am a little worse for the wear. I feel like I have waded through a couple of decades of murky emotional waters. Was it necessary? Probably. Did I handle it as well as I could have? Probably not.

Thanks for advice, by the way, on navigating the family visit. I only managed to get away to a coffee shop to work 2 (out of 14) days. I did end up going farther South to my father's house and a bit further down the cosmic drain, but I am in the end glad I went.

By the way and fyi, the plane trips to and from the Deep Red were HORRENDOUS. Delays, flight changes, hours and hours in airports, lost luggage. The airline system is broken, people, just in case you did not already know. I have traveled twice a year to the Deep Red for the past 15 years and I travel at least one a year for conferences, and I have never seen anything as ludicrous as what went on these most recent flights. Broken.

Okay. End of rant, I think. I do have something to say about the growing popularity of the Aerobed and the serious threat to sleeping comfort it poses for millions of visitors in homes across the country, but I will save that for another day.

I know I sound like a spoiled and ungrateful asshat of a traveler but DUDES it is good to be home and back with The Someone and easing back into what will be a crazy busy but--I have no doubt--completely awesome rest of the summer.

To bail or not to bail?

2008-06-30T10:47:00.003-04:00

So. The second part of my Deep Red trip involves going deeper into the Deep Red to my father's house. He always comes to my sister's home about 6 hours away from his when I come to visit--for all holidays and in the summer. My sister and father have long suggested that I go down to my father's house for the 4th, which my sister, her husband, and four kids always do. My sister has many high school friends in this tiny Southern town, so she enjoys going. My father lives close to a tennis club, so the kids play tennis and swim all day. I got the hell out of that town as fast as I could within days of graduating from high school. My mother left about a year later.

So. This trip has already been difficult on a number of levels. I've been here a week. I have not had much time to myself and have certainly not made even a dent in the huge amount of work I have needed to get done while here. There are . . . tensions between my mother and me. I also miss The Someone desperately. (No small part of this is about missing The Someone desperately. What I am realizing even more here is how completely fulfilling being with The Someone is. If I did not have the contrast of knowing an amazingly full and rich and bright and beautiful life with The Someone, I might not even fully understand the lunacy of what goes on here. I would note it, but I would note it as something necessary and to be endured until I figured out what flaw in me needed to be overcome to make it right.) Without going into too much detail, I will say that I feel that my very identity is being sucked down some cosmic drain and there is nothing I can do about it. I am disappearing.

So. This trip farther South to my father's house? It's going to be traumatic. Every time I have walked into that house since I left, or maybe since my mother left, I have pretty much burst into quiet tears that never quite go away until I do. It's also going to be chaotic. Seven people and three dogs in a three-bedroom house. Normally this would be fine and even fun, but I need some time and space for myself, even the tiniest bit, right now and that's just not going to happen. My mother is very upset that I am leaving here and spending the last week of my trip away from her. So that's the emotional toll. Then there's the psychic toll. I am fairly certain my father's house is farther down the cosmic drain.

So. I feel like a selfish bitch, but I am seriously considering changing my plane tickets, flying out of here early, skipping the journey farther south part of the trip entirely. I feel guilty at even the thought, so it probably will not happen. But why should I do something that is so clearly not good for me? So damaging? So traumatic? Is the point to walk through it and learn what I can learn or is the point to know when and how I need to take care of myself and to do it?

My Word of the Day totally gets me

2008-06-25T09:10:00.007-04:00

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 25, 2008

forlorn \fur-LORN; for-\, adjective:

1. Sad and lonely because deserted, abandoned, or lost.
2. Bereft; forsaken.
3. Wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition.
4. Almost hopeless; desperate.

Henry had felt guilty at abandoning his sister; he had married not once but twice, leaving Rose forlorn.
-- Anita Brookner, Visitors

In these forlorn regions of unknowable dreary space, this reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.
-- Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination

Bloch remembers that Stephen was a member of the Milk Squad, comprised of children who were considered to need extra nutrition, and early photographs do show him as one of the smaller boys, in the front row, looking forlorn.
-- Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life

Forlorn comes from Old English forleosan, "to abandon," from for- + leosan, "to lose."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for forlorn

I don't like being away from The Someone. And by "don't like" I mean that I feel like I might die. This is a new feeling. I have missed significant others in the past, but as a person who does not mind spending a lot of time alone, separations--even long ones--were always basically fine. Now? Part of me is here in the Deep Red, doing this and that with my family. And part of me is perpetually absorbed in thoughts of The Someone. All of me is longing to see The Someone and pathetically heartbroken that it will be twelve days before I do. Forlorn gorgon.

Random Bullets of Chaos and Joy

2008-06-19T13:03:00.003-04:00

I hereby declare this the Summer of Chaos and Joy. I am also going to go ahead and admit to myself that this will probably be a summer of light blogging. Too much joy. Too much chaos. I should point out that both "too much" and "chaos" are as joyful as joy to me.
I am hands down head over heels in love with The Someone. In. Love. Bigly.
I have recently pissed off important people at work. Again.
I have recently made friends with important people at work. Yay!
I just spent an amazing few days with my favorite person in Favorite City. Bliss.
I leave on Monday for two weeks in the Deep Red. Pretty much dreading this.
Work projects languish. I would make a list here of everything I need to do before summer's end, but if I did the space-time continuum would spontaneously explode.
The Someone is exquisite. You have no idea.
I must work 2-3 hours a day while with family in the Deep Red. Please advise.
If you drink many bottles of this wine, you will have a vicious vicious hangover. Trust me: it is The Brain Science (as explained by The Wine Guy at the local liquor store) that proves it. If you do it with a bunch of fun and fabulous people in New York, it will be worth it.
This morning I realized that The Someone and I have been together in four states (states as in the United, not psychological, physical, spiritual--feel like we have been in many more than four of some of these together) in the past seven weeks. (By the way--Happy Anniversary, TS.) We are fabulous gypsies.

Just going to let Bobby Z say it for me

2008-06-04T00:26:00.004-04:00

I know at some point I said that if I did a post about Buddhism or my new meditation practices, it would be code for "that asshat at work is up to more ass haberdashery." But I just don't have the zen in me, folks. No, no I do not.

So let's enjoy this repeat musical interlude with the Dylan and videophorically give the melodiphoric finger to those idiotic Idiot Winds in our lives.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-06-01T11:49:00.003-04:00

It's hard not to want to live in flip flops and little dresses when summer rolls around, but I am thinking solid colors, clean lines, a girly ruffle here, some platinum and kohl rock-n-roll there, and for the foreseeable future--because I need my bad-ass imaginary haircut and my ubiquitous imaginary cigarette--Jean Seberg. And maybe some hats. I have been known to rock a summer hat and rock it well.

As always, click on the pics for original sources and more information

Poetry Friday, Lorca

2008-05-30T11:34:00.007-04:00

I want

...only your hot heart
and nothing more.

My paradise a field
without a nightingale
or lyres,
with an unobtrusive stream
and a modest fountainhead.

Without the spur of breeze
troubling the leaves,
without the star that longs
itself to be a leaf.
One enormous light

to be
the firefly
of one bigger still,
in a field of broken gazes.

A clear place of repose
and there our kissing,
loud specks shed by
echo,
would flower far abroad.

And your hot heart
and nothing more.

-Federico Garcia Lorca

A gift from The Someone this week. Sigh. Um, have I mentioned that we are undeniably perfect for one another? (By the way, I wrote that linked post almost exactly one year before our first date.)

Mirror Geography

2008-05-25T22:11:00.003-04:00

How to write about this experience? How to write about The Someone? As I navigate this new and intense and passionate and brilliant new relationship, I am struggling with the hows and ifs of putting it into narrative form, especially here.

I will say this. It is one of those rare things. You meet and . . . BOOM. That's it. You are done for this world without this person and this person is done for this world without you.

How do you blog about that which is deeply personal? Love affairs? Those you love? I usually only blog in hints and bits and pieces about relationships, until they are over or nearly over. (In fact, the death knell of a relationship is usually when I start to blog about it.) But I have not felt this way about a person since I began blogging. Hell, I have felt this way only a couple of times in my life. Or maybe never exactly like this.

There is another element of this, an element those of you who recognize the post title as part of a quotation will easily guess, that makes blogging about this relationship a particular challenge. I actually want to blog about this element for many reasons--personal, political, theoretical. Again, though, this is very personal and involves a person and a relationship I want to protect. What to do?

Music update (lame!), Falling madly in love (not lame!)

2008-05-18T11:36:00.008-04:00

In lieu of a real post (I know, I suck), I am updating the music meme that I posted before my head exploded, my body turned inside out, the earth tilted on its axis, and my whole world was--in short--rocked.**

All lyrics are identified and a couple of links are thrown in for fun and for the pure joy of watching that sweet Welsh rocker boy, Kelly Jones, as well as the one and only JT.

1. There was a rapture, so I can never see you anymore. (The Twilight Singers, "Bonnie Brae")
2. You don't need your name in bright lights. (Jamiroquai, "High Times")
3. Breaking away to the other side, I want to make sense of why we live and die. (Cowboy Junkies, "I Don't Get It")
4. In my mother's house, there's a photograph of a day gone past. (Corinne Bailey Rae, "Butterfly")
5. She found a fifth-wheel trailer and a blueblood cat. (Cash Monies and the Jetsetter, "Blueblood Cat")
6. ~~You say you want a revolution.~~ (The Beatles, "Revolution")
7. G Gb F E D Gmi C7 Bmi . . . (John Coltrane, "Spiral")
8. ~~Jesus, don't cry.~~ (Wilco, "Jesus, etc.")
9. Got to get in on the scene, hon? (Stereophonics, "Pedalpusher")
10. It's going down, Tennessee. (Justin Timberlake, "Chop Me Up")
11. ~~The festival was over and the boys were all planning for a fall.~~ (Dylan, "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts")
12. Well, Annie's pretty neat. (David Bowie, "John I'm Only Dancing")
13. We came down the rivers and the highways. (The Doors, "Names of the Kingdom")
14. By the way, you know that hope will make you strange. (Jack Johnson, "Fall Line")
15. ~~Someone and someone were down by the pond looking for something to plant in the lawn.~~ (Neil Young, "Words")
16. Like a mirror, I'm nothing. (Morphine, "Like a Mirror")
17. ~~Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while.~~ (Led Zeppelin, "Gallows Pole")
18. Mary, Mary, where you been? (Stereophonics, "Madame Helga")
19. ~~Hand over hand on the lifeline, luckily the knots stay tight.~~ (Morphine, "Rope on Fire")
20. ~~Seen the arrow on the doorpost saying this land is condemned all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem.~~ (Dylan, "Blind Willie McTell")
21. I told you how I feel but you don't care. (Fiona Apple, "Sleep to Dream")
22. Have I a hope or half a chance to even ask if I could dance with you? (Hurricane Smith, "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?")
23. Driving in the South, the motor's on fire. (Yo La Tengo, "We're an American Band")
24. ~~I'm walking out in a force ten gale.~~ (Radiohead, "Scatterbrain")
25. Turn off that weak jam, man. (The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, "Mr. Happy")

**It doesn't sound pleasant at all when I put it this way, does it? It is very very pleasant. I am still thinking through the ins and outs of blogging about The Someone. Stay tuned.

I am still alive. I might go blind. (And, oh, I met someone.)

2008-05-12T22:28:00.000-04:00

Crazy semester of crazy 70-hour work weeks is coming to a close.

You people? You people write A LOT. I realize I have a ridiculous number of blogs in my Bloglines but . . .

Do you see that number? (Click to embiggen.) The number of posts you have posted in just over two weeks?

1600 posts?? Seriously? I will catch up. I might go blind, but I will catch up.

The Someone is spectacular. I have no idea how to blog about it.

There are conferences and then there are conferences

2008-05-05T10:28:00.002-04:00

And that, my friends, was one hell of a conference. I am spent in all the best ways. My liver is no longer speaking to me but otherwise. . .

Giddy like a little professing child

2008-04-29T23:20:00.008-04:00

What do I love more than almost anything? Off I go!

(Oh, and if you are reading this and you think you might know of the super secret location in which I might be super secretly heading and you think you too might be super secretly heading in my super secret direction, email me!! There might just be super secret meetings of super secret blogging folks at this super secret location.)

I'm alive! Alive! (cue music)

2008-04-27T19:49:00.010-04:00

Oh the work, it consumes me. As proof of my continued existence, I shall do the ubiquitous music meme. As seen in its ubiquity and TWICE at Dr. Crazy's (proving she's no ubiquity snob =).

The rules:
Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING.

1. There was a rapture, so I can never see you anymore.
2. You don't need your name in bright lights.
3. Breaking away to the other side, I want to make sense of why we live and die.
4. In my mother's house, there's a photograph of a day gone past.
5. She found a fifth-wheel trailer and a blueblood cat.
6. ~~You say you want a revolution.~~ (The Beatles, "Revolution")
7. G Gb F E D Gmi C7 Bmi . . .
8. ~~Jesus, don't cry.~~ (Wilco, "Jesus, etc.")
9. Got to get in on the scene, hon?
10. It's going down, Tennessee.
11. ~~The festival was over and the boys were all planning for a fall.~~ (Dylan, "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts")
12. Well, Annie's pretty neat.
13. We came down the rivers and the highways.
14. By the way, you know that hope will make you strange.
15. ~~Someone and someone were down by the pond looking for something to plant in the lawn.~~ (Neil Young, "Words")
16. Like a mirror, I'm nothing.
17. ~~Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while.~~ (Led Zeppelin, "Gallows Pole")
18. Mary, Mary, where you been?
19. ~~Hand over hand on the lifeline, luckily the knots stay tight.~~ (Morphine, "Rope on Fire")
20. ~~Seen the arrow on the doorpost saying this land is condemned all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem.~~ (Dylan, "Blind Willie McTell")
21. I told you how I feel but you don't care.
22. Have I a hope or half a chance to even ask if I could dance with you?
23. Driving in the South, the motor's on fire.
24. ~~I'm walking out in a force ten gale.~~ (Radiohead, "Scatterbrain")
25. Turn off that weak jam, man.

Poetry Friday, but of course Brautigan

2008-04-18T20:18:00.002-04:00

Kafka's Hat

With the rain falling
surgically against the roof,
I ate of dish of ice cream
that looked like Kafka's hat.

It was a dish of ice cream
tasting like an operating table
with the patient staring
up at the ceiling.

For my student who suggested that what we were each experiencing in separate ways this week was the same uncanny feeling that we were living in a Kafka story.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-04-17T13:45:00.001-04:00

I have written about my Imaginary Perfect Haircut before. I want it desperately, but it would not work with my thick crazy Medusa locks. In times of stress when fortitude and cool are needed, I walk around with my imaginary haircut (imaginarily) and thereby become a total bad ass.

The ubiquitous Agyness Deyn is currently rocking my Imaginary Perfect Haircut in REAL LIFE. I want to find her irritating, but I can't because a) she really rocks the IPH; and b) I ultimately think that underlying the current widespread irritation at Agyness Deyn is the lame and elitist and even more irritating kneejerk reaction against ubiquity itself. Oh, and if you had no idea who Agyness Deyn was before you read this paragraph: This is Agyness Deyn. She is a British model. She is ubiquitous! How did her ubiquity escape you?! OMG! Be irritated!

A riddle

2008-04-16T09:27:00.004-04:00

Currently my cell phone is in parts and stuffed into two bags of uncooked basmati rice.

Have I gone mad or is there some reason for this?

Updated: Ya'll are awesome and make me laugh. Geeka's soaked phone theory is correct. I threw a half-full and not quite closed bottle of water in my bag with my cell phone. The rest of you also correct. I am quite mad, but in this case I am crazy like a fox, a mad genius. After spending the night in rice, my cell phone is completely dry, quite fragrant, and in perfect working order.

1000 days

2008-04-13T23:40:00.004-04:00

Yesterday marked 1000 days since I smoked a cigarette. I had intended to do a long post about quitting on that day, but judging by the way my schedule is looking it might be 1030 days or 1040 days or 1066 days by the time I get around to writing such a post. But I am marking it today in order a) to remind myself to do such a post; b) to let you say "Yay! Woo hoo hoo, Medusa!!"; and c) not to smoke a congratulatory cigarette* to celebrate my accomplishment.

*Note to my smoky smoking friends who want to quit: I actually have no desire whatsoever to smoke a cigarette these days. I much prefer dream-smoking with Johnny Depp.

Poetry Friday, Brautigan for the overscheduled and the lovely love of eccentricity

2008-04-11T09:25:00.006-04:00

The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem

Because you always have a clock
strapped to your body, it's natural
that I should think of you as the
correct time:
with your long blond hair at 8:03,
and your pulse-lightning breasts at
11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30,
I know I'm right.

I am saucy that way

2008-04-09T19:12:00.001-04:00

As seen as Brigindo's.

Haiku² for professionalmirror
and galaxies god knows we try to get out but i pour whiskey on him
@

Created by Grahame

(Someday I will post something other than a meme. You have no idea how much I miss my wardrobe-inspired-by posts. Oh--but Lina created an outfit for me for an upcoming wardrobe-challenging event, and it is perfecto!)

Quite true

2008-04-09T18:28:00.004-04:00

As seen at New Kid's and Luckybuzz's

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The South
The Inland North
Boston
The Northeast
North Central
Philadelphia
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I am accentless, but I am not from Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, or Missouri. I was born across the river from Philly; I did live in Indiana for a short time (and my grandparents lived there all of my life); my parents lived in Missouri, where my sister was born; I spent a chunk of my early childhood in West Virginia, which is close to these places; and I have lived in nearly every single area in the U.S. but "The Midland" since. So, yes, this is also the American gypsy/migrant family accent. Like a good gypsy, I often pick up the accent of the people I am around.

Quick de-tox

2008-04-06T14:47:00.003-04:00

I have decided to cut out alcohol completely and cut down on sugary treats for the next seven days or so. At the same time, I am drinking lots of water and dandelion root tea. I do this from time to time to give my sweet friend, the liver, a break. The problem with doing it now is that my stress levels are through the roof, and I could really really use that glass of wine now and then (and now and now and then and then) to take the edge off. (I know, I know--am using alcohol to medicate, not good, yadda yadda . . .that's another debate that I'd love to have with all those interested over drinks sometime. =) I think the edge-off wine is ultimately adding to my stress at the moment by exacerbating my exhaustion and insomnia and irritability and by doing nothing at all to amp up my productivity levels which need to be amped to their full ampage right now.

And so Medusa is as sober as a judge. I would truly appreciate any support or stress-relieving tips you can offer!

Brautigan Saturday, Repeat

2008-04-05T10:59:00.004-04:00

I am pretty sure I have posted this poem before, but since April indeed can be the cruellest month I thought I would (via Brautigan) offer a repair kit:

Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4

1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4.

Photobucket meme

2008-04-03T22:27:00.011-04:00

Took this down because new pictures started popping up in place of or in addition to those originally posted, even though I was not editing the post. Freaky.

Solar-powered gorgon

2008-04-02T02:03:00.001-04:00

Hello insomnia, my old friend. What has it been, several months of shorter days and longer nights? Well, come on in and settle in until late October or so, as I know you will.

What shall we read? Write? Paint? Sew? Compile? How about a big thick binder of promotion and tenure materials?

Cool? Cool! Do you want to make a pot of tea or shall I?

I give 134%

2008-04-01T23:49:00.004-04:00

Created by OnePlusYou

This is 134% MORE than other websites who took this test.

As seen at Lina's, who swears as robustly and finely as anyone I know, despite the poor results of her test. I must say I am deeply suspicious of a cuss-o-meter with the range labels "darnit," "a-hole," and "f-bomb."

Should I buy a lemon tree?

2008-03-30T16:32:00.001-04:00

Apparently they are happy as indoor plants. A lemon tree in the garret! How could one be depressed with a three-foot lemon tree in the house? I should mention I really really love lemons. I should also mention that I am in a wicked state of procrastination over a stack of papers I do not at all want to grade. I should also mention--should it not be obvious to all who are privy to the fact that I am entertaining the idea of buying a lemon tree--that the mad nesting of '08 continues, unabated and perhaps even invigorated by the finishing of the shelf project. I should also mention that the bottomless pit of desire to consume evidenced in posts of recent months has varied and complex reasons not the least of which is the pressure to produce and the ever closer and ever more pressing need to create and submit a record of such production. I could explain this by way of Karl Marx and Sofia Coppola, but I think I am going to save that for a class or a paper or both. In short, upcoming tenure bid + Medusa= insatiable lust for shoes and citrus-bearing potted plants.

Promises to myself, without apology or guilt, for the rest of the '08

2008-03-29T23:04:00.007-04:00

--I will spend at least one Spring day and one Spring night in Favorite City.

--I will be awake, as in all night awake, to watch the sun come up at least once this summer.

--I will swim in Favorite Pond at least twice by year's end, once in daylight and once by moonlight.

--I will take a long walk and have a long talk with my mother.

--I will finish at least three projects (creative, academic, or otherwise) by December.

--I will sit on my roof and watch the dragonflies.

--I will keep Rule #2 (Do you want to tell it, Dr. Crazy? Or guess it, anyone else?) in mind at all times.

--I will drink whiskey and drink it well.

Poetry Friday, "Cat" by Brautigan

2008-03-28T00:33:00.001-04:00

Cat

We lay in that bed one sunny evening after making love
and decided to name our first girl Cat, we were going
to name her Cat, but now we have departed forever from our
love-making, and we will not have a little girl, nor any
children at all, and I am doomed to become the poet
in your dreams who falls continually like the evening rain.

It's been a long time since I lay in a bed with a lover talking about what we would name our children--children we were sure we would have, sure we would name. It makes me feel like an old bitter lady to say so.

I am not an old bitter lady. I am a young lady full of life and joy who is a little sad today, after a rough week with some mean people and an Idiot Wind who really . . .how can I put this delicately? Sucks balls. And this ball-sucking Idiot Wind has a good bit of control over my life and likes to suck the joy right out of it.

So, in short--I want to do my work. I want to have the time to appreciate my incredible students and my tantalizing ideas and my beautiful life.

I want to be besotted with it all. Why is that deemed so dangerous?

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-03-26T12:50:00.012-04:00

The Calvin Klein ruby shoes continue to hold their sartorial sway over my imagination, and I am obsessed with touches of any and all shades of red . . .

How bad-ass is this hat?

I need a loose knit cap. It needs to be red. (I resist calling it a Rasta hat, because of this kerfuffle. I am not sure how I myself feel about the young traveling heiresses--though I do love the snarky term, "trustfundafarian"--but I think it's hilarious that New York Magazine responded by putting a "real" Rasta man in the Look Book this week.)

How fabulous is this conspiratorial pair?

This next outfit reminds me of something I might have worn when I was 7 or 8 years old, probably because of the white tight/black shoe combo. Still, she somehow pulls it off for a stunning ensemble. (I think I might be quoting Duckie from Pretty in Pink with the phrase, "stunning ensemble.") I do not tend to wear cardigans, but a scarlet cardigan . . .

It's about the time of year when my inner Tyler Durden wants to come out to play. No, I don't want to burn a kiss mark into my hand with lye or have sex with Helena Bonham Carter** or fistfight boys in bar basements or start armies or anything. I do, however, start to feel a bit of a fevah that puts a certain strut in my step and makes me want to wear the best evah item of fantasy clothing in red . . .

. . .the Durden jacket. (It doesn't look red in this photo, but trust me, it's Tyler Durden red.) I actually have a red jacket with sort of the same cut but it is made out of some cheap chemical leather-like substance. Someday I will find the Durden jacket, perfect in fabric, style, and girl-friendly cut. It really is the holy grail of clothing for me.

**Note: This is not entirely true. I think that everyone sort of wants to have sex with Helena Bonham Carter or be her for a day or be Marla Singer for a day or to be Tim Burton, who actually does have sex with Helena Bonham Carter.

Brautigan Saturday, "The Return of the Rivers" (+ some ruby shoes)

2008-03-22T10:51:00.011-04:00

The Return of the Rivers

All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.

It is raining today
in the mountains.

It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.

Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heavens
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair.

A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.

Happy Spring, everyone. This last stanza is one my favorites in all of Brautigan's poems. The beautifully quirky and rich image of a pan of frying flowers followed by this impossibly romantic thought. Quintessential Brautigan.

It has been a frantic week, back from break and trying to get ready for what is going to be an insanely busy April. With regular teaching, directing a student thesis project to its completion and presentation, hosting a major campus event I have spent hours and hours and will spend hours and hours more organizing, making sure my umpteen senior advisees will indeed graduate, grading the final work of umpteen students, and oh leaving for five days to attend a conference and chair a panel and give a paper there, April will indeed be the cruelest month. I am anticipating back-to-back 70-hour weeks if I am lucky. Oddly, I am feeling okay about it. Energetic, at least. Perhaps I am in complete denial. Of course, getting all of this done requires that I completely avoid Idiot Wind (formerly called TDC here) and ignore all of her last-minute, time-sucking requests--three alone in the last week.

What's just happened here?? Away with thee, bitchy franticness! It's Spring! Sorry I did not have time to post my wardrobe inspirations for the week. By way of apology, behold:

Ruby shoes. Calvin Klein ruby shoes. Want them. Cannot afford them right now. Thank the Zappos gods that my size is out of stock.

Six word memoir meme

2008-03-19T23:55:00.007-04:00

Via Emily at The Seacoast of Bohemia.

Instructions:

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4 Tag five more blogs with links

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

So here we go. What you need to know about me in six words:

Nathaniel Hawthorne is my imaginary boyfriend.

I tag Dr. Crazy, Lina, Ms. Babe, squadratomagico, and Life of a Fool.

Hooray! Happy Dance!*

2008-03-17T10:47:00.007-04:00

Spring Break in Professor House was a productive and successful one. I wore many hilarious and freaky outfits, wrote a conference paper, and got through more of the rest of my to dos than I thought I would. Wooo hooo hoooo!!

*I have to confess something. Lately, when I blast music and dance wildly around the garret, which happens quite regularly, I have been doing this thing . . . I dance badly on purpose, imitating famous bad dances such as the Elaine dance, the old man in the Six Flags commercial dance, the Finnish YMCA dance, and the spastic Charlie Brown kid dance. It is great fun, but I am concerned. There is a good possibility, I fear, that soon I will forget how to dance any other way and this will just be the way I dance. And that I will do it in public. (Click on the links when you have a minute. You will not be sorry.)

Brautigan Saturday, "Comets"

2008-03-15T13:52:00.004-04:00

Comets

There are comets
that flash through
our mouths wearing
the grace
of oceans and galaxies.

God knows,
we try to do the best
we can.

There are comets
connected to chemicals
that telescope
down our tongues
to burn out against
the air.

I know
we do.

There are comets
that laugh at us
from behind our teeth
wearing the clothes
of fish and birds.

We try.

A bit of Brautigan for all my peeps out there who are trying--to write that fantangled conference paper or that beastiferous article, to finish that putrivicious thesis or dagdambled diss, to think that beamlusheried great thought, to make that splooshastically great art, to get though this crabcrickily winter, or simply to get through this boomtickily day.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-03-12T14:06:00.027-04:00

. . . a writing marathon. How to describe the get-ups one tends to wear during these intensive periods of writing? The process of of putting one of these outfits together springs from equal parts raw necessity, strange whim, and a tunnel vision focused entirely on pursuits of the mind. The results are strange but somehow empowering, inspiring great scholarly energy.

Early morning is my best time for generating ideas and writing quickly. It's best for me to get right to it. This is why my writing uniform for the day often begins with perhaps just a sweater thrown over a nightgown,

or a sweatshirt and p.j. bottom combo,

or sometimes just the full-on pajama.

Before I write, I often feel the need to put something on my head. My friend, Dr. Crazy, wrote almost her entire dissertation while wearing a tiara. I prefer a thinking cap of some kind. My two current favorites are these:

You don't have to tell me they are hideous. Most of my thinking caps I get for free. The hideousness, the freebieness--these are important aspects of a good thinking cap.

At some point I will have to take the dog outside, so I will add some lovely footwear to the ensemble.

I have not worn Uggs in public except to take the Chalupa into the backyard or to take the trash to the curb since 2003. I believe they are aesthetically atrocious. But, dudes, they are comfortable and warm.

Speaking of which, at some point I will, even in the winter, get too warm. You would think that I would just take off the wooly sheepskin footwear, but I do not. Instead, I will change into a tank top and one of the following:

a) gym shorts

or, b) this nonsensical item of clothing, the sweatskirt.

From that point in the day onward, it's all about quick fixes to a cold chest or shoulders or hands or legs. This is also when the dancer in me

takes over as a major sartorial influence.

Cold chest or shoulders? What could be better than the ballet sweater, or as a friend calls each of the no less than five or six I have in my wardrobe, the "tit cozy"?

Cold legs? Pants? Why?? Leg warmers are much more specific to this need!

Cold hands? May I suggest your standard fingerless glove,

or, for wrist and forearm warming needs, the opera-length fingerless glove. These may look suspiciously like sleeves to you and you might wonder, "Hey, why not just put on a shirt?". Because! You might at any moment need to remove those sleeves! Voila, removable sleeves!

Things might go anywhere from here depending on 1) the season; 2) the theoretical difficulty of the paper; 3) the page number-to-deadline ratio; and 4) caffeine, sugar, carb, and alcohol intake. Layers are sure to be removed and added, until by the end of any given writing-marathon day, one might see me walking La Chalupa looking something like this:

Laugh if you will, but that woman? That woman, if not a scholar, is most certainly a genius, and I can guarantee you she is thinking great thoughts.

Five years + two bassists + one string theory guy + a professor's designs =

2008-03-10T20:04:00.031-04:00

the gloriousness that is this . . .

That's right, my friends, the built-in bookshelves are done! Aren't they spectacular??

Now, once upon a time and not so long ago, indeed at the very turn of this year, yours truly was working in this very same space. But this very same space? It looked like this:

The shelves, which were begun by Bassist #1 (Demetrius) in 2003, were not usable from 2003-2008. As regular readers know, Demetrius was hired by that punk-ass bitch, let's call him Dowie Hay, to go on tour soon after he started to build the shelves in August 2003 and my shelves were shelved on Demetrius's list of projects. I have been bitter about this for years. They were unfinished and unstable, ripping off the walls in many places. My books were scattered all over the garret. Those books in the picture above were thrown haphazardly onto the shelves, completely unorganized. Narcissistic String Theory Guy came along in the Fall of 2003 and built me a pretty cool desk. That was pretty nice of him. It looked like this (though I added the wine and coffee stains later):

Jump to 2008. The saving of some pennies, the frustration of many years with books in utter disarray, and this winter's blast of mad nesting energy led me to hire Bassist #2 (my ex-boyfriend, The Boy of 2005) to complete the project.

The project is completed! I spent the whole weekend doing some touch-ups then finally finally FINALLY placing the books here and in other shelves around the house according to the intricate organizing system I have spent OH I DON'T KNOW THE PAST FIVE FRICKIN YEARS conceiving. Sweet fancy moses but it feels good.

My advice to you is this. Unless you are talented and experienced in the art of carpentry, never ever build anything in your house. It will take you more time and more money than you have, especially if you have no money because say maybe at the time you are an assistant professor who just bought an attic in an expensive city. Do not do this even (or especially?) if you have many friends who are musicians and also carpenters. Also--and this is very important--no matter what the commercials say and the many home improvement t.v. shows imply: you cannot do it and Home Depot cannot help. Seriously.

Worth it, though? Completely, totally, utterly. Because this room, as simple as it may look, is the room I have been dreaming of inhabiting since I was a teeny book-loving little girl.

More pics of various steps of the project below.

Floral Medusa

2008-03-08T13:35:00.013-05:00

What These Carnations Say About You

You have a distinct style... one that many people find fascinating.

You are charming and alluring. People are drawn to you - and you are very popular.

You never forget a name or a face. And the people you love are always on your mind

What Do The Flowers You Pick Say About You?

As seen at the fabulous Lina's

I normally think of carnations as tacky, scrawny, and cheap, but maybe I have seen one too many dyed and dying prom boutonniere. I love them in this picture.

Just in case any of you ever feel the need to send me flowers, though, peonies are my very favorite:

Brautigan Saturday on Poetry Friday

2008-03-07T18:45:00.001-05:00

The Sidney Greenstreet Blues

I think something beautiful
and amusing is gained
by remembering Sidney Greenstreet,
but it is a fragile thing.

The hand picks up a glass.
The eye looks at the glass
and then hand, glass, and eye
fall away.

Indeed.

One more class and then it's a much-needed week off for me. I refuse to call it "Spring Break" as that conjures up images of tropical settings and drunken debauchery or at the very least implies something related to Spring (which doesn't really come for me until May) or at the very very least denotes an actual break.

I have a lot of writing to do. A lot. This is not unusual for ~~Spring Breaks~~ March Writing Marathons of years past. There will be much writing but there will also be sleeping in and movies and wine and maybe just maybe a night or two out.

Do they still have the MTV Spring Break beach house or party house or whatever? If MTV were to do a Spring Break professor house, there would be a lone dishevelled woman in strange outfits (which I, like many of my comrades, tend to wear when I write), books and papers everywhere, a bored chihuahua, maybe something like The Maltese Falcon on the television, and several bottles of red wine in various states of fullness--one on the desk, one by the bedside, one by the table. Every once in a while in the MTV Spring Break Garret, the dishevelled prof would rouse herself from the laptop, put some Led Zeppelin or Violent Femmes on the iPod and dance wildly. Then it would be back to the writing.

OK, now I am kind of looking forward to my lame non-Spring Break alone with my own bad self.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-03-06T14:35:00.007-05:00

It's really all about boots and skinny legs for miles this week.

I cannot obtain legs for miles but I can obtain boots. I am obsessed with booties this season. In addition to my favorite dark brown fake Chloe's, I somehow accidentally through absolutely no fault of my own came to buy two pairs of black ankle boots, one a little more casual and one more dressy, more slouchy, more fabulous pair, which I call my Apollonia boots. I do not know if Apollonia ever wore such a pair but let's just say if I were exiled to a place where people dressed exactly as if they were on the set of Purple Rain, I would pretty much be right at home with my Apollonia boots.

So the overall inspiration continues to be the '80s, but I think we can also see the influence of my pick for the way above and beyond winner of this season's Project Runway, . . .

. . Christian. Sure, the kid's a brat but he's also a genius.

A Bloglines question

2008-03-05T10:51:00.004-05:00

I read blogs through Bloglines. For most of my 108 (!!) feeds, the full content of new posts shows up in Bloglines. I will often go onto to the actual blog--to comment, to see pictures, etc. If I am quickly looking through new posts in the morning before class or during a break, I will click "keep new" on a post to indicate that I want to go over later to comment or read more or whatever.

So my question. A few of you show up in Bloglines as having a new post, but only the title or the title and a few lines of the post is visible through Bloglines. Do you do this on purpose? Is there some kind of option that allows only a certain truncated amount of text to show up in readers like these? If so, why? Is it a statistics counting thing? Do you want to know how many people are actually reading your blog, since a reader reading only through Bloglines doesn't show up? Or is a feed type or blog type issue?

For whatever reason, I will rarely rarely take the time to click over and check out a blog post that only has a title or a few lines of text showing. It seriously has to say something like, "The world is on fire, and Christian Louboutins are on sale for 90% off at . . ." to get me to go the actual blog. This is weird because I will and do go to actual blogs through Bloglines, but only when I can read or skim the whole post on Bloglines first.

Poetry Friday-->Brautigan Saturday-->Communication Overload Sunday

2008-03-02T10:49:00.004-05:00

To England

There are no postage stamps that send letters
back to England three centuries ago,
no postage stamps that make letters
travel back until the grave hasn't been dug yet,
and John Donne stands looking out the window,
it is just beginning to rain this April morning,
and the birds are falling into the trees
like chess pieces into an unplayed game,
and John Donne sees the postman coming up the street,
the postman walks very carefully because his cane
is made of glass.

--Richard Brautigan

I wonder how many words I have written or spoken in the past month: how many words in emails to students, colleagues, and countless others as I conduct professional and personal business; how many words in comments on student papers; how many words in to-do list upon to-do list; how many words in lectures; how many words in meetings with students; how many words in committee meetings; how many words in candidate interviews; how many words on the phone with appointment makers, reservation clerks, prescription fillers, organizers, agents, computer fixers, survey takers.

Too many words. Thousands, tens of thousands of words spent and lost. Too few words of psyche-sustaining kind. Too few spent on poems (180), on articles (0), on conference papers (0), on blog posts (1500), on real live actual personal hand-written letters (22), on wishes (15), on jokes (0), on sweet nothings (0).

I wonder if voluntary muteness is an option at this point in the semester. Vow of silence? Communication blackout? Word strike? Slipping off the grid? Faking catatonia?

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-02-27T12:12:00.011-05:00

. . .my 19-year-old self. It's almost March, a month that almost always brings back the pretty powerful memories and energy of a certain time in my life. The Spring of the 19-year-old me (oh these many moons ago) blew my mind in many many ways, both good and bad. There were adolescent epiphanies, a newfound sense of autonomy, a crazy boyfriend, a legal separation (my parents), some illegal substances, much music, many friends, and the carving out of a little nouveau-bohemian existence of my own. All of this hinged on a totally rad, utterly overdetermined aesthetic.

During my 19th year and into my early 20s I dressed at various times and during various moods like three of these characters. Can you guess which?

1. Claire/Molly Ringwald, of course. Though I am still on the lookout for all of the pieces to reproduce that exact ensem. When I find it, I will dance like this.

2. The pre-makeover Allison/Ally Sheedy. Lots of black and gray. Lots of long scarves. Lots of eyeliner.

3. John Bender. Jean jacket? Check. Flannel with cut-off sleeves over long-underwear top? Check. Fingerless gloves? Most definitely, then and now. I also wanted (want) badly to make out with John Bender in a broom closet, which is why he has been my imaginary boyfriend for over 20 years now. Not Judd Nelson, mind you. John Bender.

I would have worn this next outfit when I was 19. I think I did wear this next outfit when I was 19. I am slightly concerned about how orange this person is. Is it the lighting in the photo? Orange tights? An ironic retro self-tanning job? I was not this orange when I was 19.

The boots. The socks. The skinny mini with the crisp buttoned-up white blouse. All of those bracelets! I will steal this look, though not with a mini that wee. Inspiration, yes. Adaptation, yes.

How perfect does this next woman (model Anja Rubik, I think) look? I love everything about this outfit.

This was my 19-year-old haircut. I loved that haircut. I still love that haircut. So New Wave. So Evangelista.

I think I have to go listen to some Thompson Twins now, then maybe go out and buy some potted daffodils, and then maybe try to get at least a conceptual grip on this much too early, must too strong Spring fevah of mine.

I'm rollin', I'm rollin', I'm rollin'. . .

2008-02-23T14:35:00.005-05:00

No, I haven't spent my Saturday morning tripping on Ecstasy (in some ways I really do miss the '80s, in others I really don't) and I haven't spent it shoveling out my car, as I should have. In a fit of procrastination and because I have a fevah, the kind that needs ibuprofen, not more cowbell (unfortunately), I have spent the morning updating my blog roll, and I even neatly organized it into neat little categories (for this part, I blame the impregnating aliens who have turned me into a nesting and sorting freak).

So check yourself and your cool company out. And if I forgot you or you would like to be added, just let me know.

Poetry Friday, man oh man Brautigan

2008-02-22T17:01:00.005-05:00

Man

With his hat on
he's about five inches taller
than a taxicab.

I am posting Brautigan's "Man" in celebration of the end of the week's grading and in honor of the one student who kept referring to Man--Man's universe, Man's nature, the virtues of Man, the vices of Man--in his essay. I kept wanting to write in the margins, "Who is this 'Man' fellow you speak of?", but leaving this poem as a comment would have worked beautifully as well.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-02-20T09:28:00.010-05:00

I am tapped this week, but that in no way means I am too tired to think about clothes.

This week I have returned to the familiar shape of this winter's uniform, the Pippi/Swedish Street Urchin.

I adore the color of this scarf. Adore.

I adore it so much, I am putting touches of it all over my house. This weekend I reupholstered my vanity seat in this fabric, a purchase partly inspired by this dress. (Unfortunately you can't really see how beautiful the gold is in either the photo of the seat or the dress.)

Can you believe I did this myself? The mad nesting of possible alien impregnation continues. Upholstery? Since when do I do upholstery? Crazed Spring Cleaning '08 has officially begun.

Poetry Friday, a.k.a. Brautigan Saturday

2008-02-16T10:07:00.003-05:00

A Mid-February Sky Dance

Dance toward me, please, as
if you were a star
with light-years piled
on top of your hair,
smiling,

and I will dance toward you
as if I were darkness
with bats piled like a hat
on top of my head.

I had thought I would take a break from the Brautigan, so I started writing a poem yesterday morning with the intention of posting it. Then I had to leave to teach, and I was too tired and museless to return to it last night.

This morning I decided we all still needed the Brautigan anyway, at least enough to get us through the winter. I had a vague memory of a Brautigan poem called "February 15," which turned out to be this. Now that I read it, I think I will include yesterday's poem with it. So here it is, drafty and unfinished, but my own mid-February poem.

Carlton Arms

Room 6C, corner of 3rd and 25th,
The goddess room you called it, rolling over,
Reaching out, covering your eyes with green
Flimsy fabric straying from the window,
Breeze-blown veil for this, your rare hangover.

Please please please aspirin please, if you will.
I will, I say without saying, already
On my way out of your arms, out of doors.

65 degrees on February 15,
Weak wintry morning sun, city well awake,
Shopkeepers sweeping water, melting snow,
Away from shop doors, creating a dance
Of passersby, skirting moving edges.

Away from you, I gather myself, tight
Into the smoke of the day’s first cigarette.
Duane Reade, coffee stand, you, back to you.

We spent that whole day in your hangover,
In the weird green light of the goddess room,
In the rebel breeze of a rebel day.

I told you I felt like a made-up image
From a very old daydream, from my own
Little-girl daydream, like I was not here now,
But there, under a West Virginia tree,
Dreaming 6C, corner of 3rd and 25th.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-02-13T22:30:00.004-05:00

I chose these a few days ago. All of that gray--I should have known I was headed for some grump and gloom. I am in a mood. I think it's mostly hormonal, but I am also so very drained (already!) from the semester. This job is not always hell but all of the things that make it hell when it is hell are in full force at the moment. (In other words, and to put it simply--because it ultimately is this simple--the Toxic One is in full force.) Must. ignore. this. whirlwind. of. idiocy. and. toxicity.

Maybe a little Dylan will help.

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 9

2008-02-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

My Insect Funeral

When I was a child
I had a graveyard
where I buried insects
and dead birds under
a rose tree.
I would bury the insects
in tin foil and match boxes.
I would bury the birds
in pieces of red cloth.
It was all very sad
and I would cry
as I scooped the dirt
into their small graves
with a spoon.
Baudelaire would come
and join in
my insect funerals,
saying little prayers
the size of
dead birds.

San Francisco
February 1958

I am one day late for poetry Friday again, but here it is--the final part of "The Galilee Hitchhiker." Ta da!

My sister and I used to dig bird graves with spoons and bury birds and have bird funerals and pray little prayers, probably exactly the size of those little dead birds. Our childhood cat, the great bird assassin, Red Baron, would fret and strut nearby during the proceedings, kept at bay solely by the force of little girl glares.

It's been a looooong week. My laptop has returned from the land of repairs. It reportedly has a new logic board (brain?) and seems to be just fine (but does it remember me?). I am lazy and sleepy and not especially interested in straying far from my current position--in bed, laptop in front of me, warm dozing chihuahua in my lap. Trouble is I have 14 billion papers to grade and a few million errands to run and chalupy to let run and play in the park before the next snows arrive. Sigh.

Coffee. More coffee. Some lazy blog reading for a half and hour or so. Some internet window lusting after a few things that I definitely cannot buy until I get my paycheck and should not buy even then. Some more coffee. Then I shall motivate beyond the bed for the day. Happy Saturday, everyone!

My laptop went mad

2008-02-06T08:14:00.000-05:00

The Mac repair guys are trying to soften the blow by making it sound all technical n' shit, but I think we all know what "complete failure of the main logic board" really means.

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitchhiker, Part 8

2008-02-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Insane Asylum

Baudelaire went
to the insane asylum
disguised as a
psychiatrist.
He stayed there
for two months
and when he left,
the insane asylum
loved him so much
that if followed
him all over
California,
and Baudelaire
laughed when the
insane asylum
rubbed itself
up against his
leg like a
strange cat.

I had to ship my sweet sweet laptop off for repairs earlier this week. I am bereft, I tell you. When I got my laptop three years ago, I packed up my old iMac to give it to, um, . . .well, I never figured it out, and thanks to my total lack of charitable know-how, I was able to dig it out of the closet and hook it up and--voila--after a few sparks and grunts from the old beast, I am in back in business. Sort of. For example, you'll note that Friday's poem is appearing on Saturday morning. That's how slow this computer is! It's an ancient thing. OS 300 b.c., I believe. My cable modem can't stop laughing at it. I swear to god I can hear gears or something cranking in there.

Anyway, nothing could stop me from posting the penultimate part of Brautigan's "The Galilee Hitchhiker." I suspect I am enjoying posting each part each week more than anyone is actually enjoying reading it, but for me it has been a grand way to transition into the new year. Baudelaire and cats and opium and flowerburgers and ceaseless drunkenness! I simply cannot get enough. And each week, I find the part strangely applicable. This week, for example, I have been thinking about the crazy quite a bit. First, who can ignore Brit Brit's plight this week as her spiral downward lands her back in a California psych ward? (And who can speak of her without falling into entertainment reporting lingo?) Second (this really should be first), madness is figuring large in a few things I am teaching this week. Third (ok, this really really should have been first), I have been pondering over but reveling in my own total lack of mad depression this winter. (Let's just review that priority sequence: Britney, my career, my own mental health. Hrmm.)

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-01-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

I am feeling a casual vibe this week, probably because I spent the weekend hanging out in bars with bassists. I want to be a bit slouchy or in jeans or, apparently, in Paris.

I also seem to be, judging from last week and this, obsessed with blue-green shoes.

I rarely wear jeans to school any more, only on the occasional day when I am not teaching and sometimes at the tail end of the semester. This week is full of important meetings, so I have not been at all casual, but I do have a menswear mixed with chunky baubles and girly bows and Paris cool thing happening. Though I could never be as cool as Lou Doillon. Maybe if I had the long-coveted rocker bangs. Or if I were French. Or the daughter of Jane Birken.

Happy Day of the Anniversary!

2008-01-27T11:32:00.000-05:00

Hello my friends of the internets! One of the years ago today, I, the Chalupa, came to live with the Mama Medusa. Here I am on that day:

And here I am today!

Even though I strike the serious pose of the commemorative portrait, I am the happiest of pups. And do I not look rather trimmer indeed?

Celebrate! It is the day of joyousness to mark the year of joyousness!

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 7

2008-01-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

A Baseball Game

Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the fourth inning
an angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed
on second base,
causing the
whole infield
to crack like
a huge mirror.
The game was
called on
account of
fear.

Wow. "The game was called on account of fear." It feels like that happens a lot.

I still think I am dreaming in Brautiganese. Smoking cigarettes with Johnny Depp, doing coke with Dennis Hopper--it's all of a piece. Depp and Hopper, at least in image, are my rockstar poet-philosophers. If I could generate an image of Baudelaire, I am certain I would dream-smoke opium with him.

Two of my real rockstar friends and favorite bassists of yore, Feste and Demetrius, are reuniting for few shows this weekend. I will see them tonight at my favorite pub and I might even wander down to see them play in one of my favorite towns on the planet tomorrow night. Music! Friends! What a nice dark days of winter treat.

Good to know I can always go back to temping

2008-01-24T23:15:00.001-05:00

81 words

Touch Typing

As seen at Bad Ass's.

The United States Postal Service is under no obligation to deliver your mail

2008-01-24T18:01:00.000-05:00

Did you know this? I did not know this. See, I was under the impression that if you were to give a package to the United States Postal Service and were to pay the required postage fee that the United States Postal Service would in fact deliver that package to the address specified. Ha! No no no no nooo.

In actual fact, unless you send your package Priority Class (pay extra), send it Registered (pay extra) with a return receipt (pay extra), and/or insure it (pay extra), the United States Postal Service may or may not deliver that package. If you pay only the basic postage rate, they are not responsible for the delivery of the package. They can lose the package. They can deliver that package damaged. Or they can deliver that package, as was the case with one I recently sent to myself from the Deep Red, with big holes torn in it and with most of the contents missing.

So the basic postage rate is apparently a fee paid to the USPS to take your package with no promise of delivering it. So you are paying some people to take your stuff. A robbing fee, if you will.

In brief, in the exact words of a customer service representative of the United States Postal Service to me, the "United States Postal Service is under no obligation to deliver your mail (Miss)." Huh. I thought that was pretty much the only thing the United States Postal Service was obliged to do. I must have been thrown off by the whole "postal service" thing.

Medusa's road rage vocabulary list

2008-01-23T11:15:00.000-05:00

I was reluctant to post this, if only for the google hits* it will generate, but then I figured you all might enjoy some mid-week filth.

I drive to school each day in the infamously bad traffic of Crowded American City. Not only am I a good driver, but I am also a good Crowded American City driver. Which is to say that I am a complete asshole. You have to be or you will not make it a block in this town. Those of you who have lived in CAC know I do not exaggerate.

To be a good Crowded American City/complete asshole driver, you have to possess a variety of skills and strategies. For example, one must learn to navigate by the stars or the sun or the Dunkin' Donuts constellation pattern, since signs here are either non-existent or completely useless and grid systems are considered to be for the weak and the stupid. One's nervous system must also be highly sensitized to traffic flow, ready to merge or not to merge, to cut off or be cut off, to make the left turn in the 3.5 seconds before one light turns red and the other green, etc. Strategic selection of music is also crucial to the success of a complete asshole driver. You need a soundtrack for proper execution of certain maneuvers. You do not want to be calmly listening to NPR during a particularly hairy merging situation, for example. Perhaps most important to your success as an asshole on the road is your ability to swear loudly and creatively.

Yesterday, while trying to ease my frustration in rain traffic--you know, because it's completely understandable that people forget how to drive the minute rain falls from the sky in a town where the average precipitation is only OVER 40 INCHES A YEAR--by getting the Led out and alternating between singing loudly and screaming obscenities, I realized that there are words I utter only while driving. Strange words. Ridiculous words. Confusing words. Words that are not a part of my normal speech, which is by no means free of filth. So here's the partial list of road-rage favorites:

Fuckface
Shitface
Assface
Doucheface
Doucher
Fucktard
Dickweed
Fuckweed
Dickless
Fuckless
Dumbfuck
Fuckhead
Asshead
Ass-shitter
Dingleberry
Tool

What's apparent to me here is that in the car I either become a 14-year-old boy or I develop some temporary form of Tourette's Syndrome.

*Google searchers: While we see some thematic linkage and dominant imagery here, we cannot entirely account for these specific combinations of words or define them precisely. There seems to be a heavy focus on the lower stratum of the body and its functions, with an interesting tendency to tie this area and these functions to "face."

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-01-21T07:11:00.000-05:00

I am feeling a little fashion schizophrenic this week. I might go uptown and simple . . .

. . .or I might stick with what has become The Uniform for me this season--this basic silhouette and some funky splashes of color (tights or shoes or gloves) on a more neutral backdrop.

I suspect I will do both.

It occurs to me that the real underlying influence for The Uniform is my first important role model:

Dear dear Pippi, my childhood hero. I read every one of the Astrid Lindgren books over and over again. I saw the movies in the theaters and didn't even notice the insanely bad dubbing. I went as Pippi three Halloweens in a row. I named my first dog after her. And now apparently I dress like her.

I think I'm cool with that.

Brautigan Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 6

2008-01-18T09:07:00.000-05:00

Salvador Dali

"Are you
or aren't you
going to eat
your soup,
you bloody old
cloud merchant?"
Jeanne Duval
shouted,
hitting Baudelaire
on the back
as he sat
daydreaming
out the window.
Baudelaire was
startled.
Then he laughed
like hell,
waving his spoon
in the air
like a wand
changing the room
into a painting
by Salvador
Dali, changing
the room
into a painting
by Van Gogh.

Is it just me or is it getting hard to imagine Fridays without Brautigan? What are we going to do when we run out?

Today, a bonus prose-poem from Jeanne Duval's cloud-peddling lover:

The Soup and the Clouds

My madcap little beloved was making me dinner and through
the open window of the dining room I was contemplating the
moving architecture that God fashions from mists, the marvelous
constructions of the impalpable. And I was saying to myself,
in mid-contemplation: “All that phantasmagoria is almost as
beautiful as the eyes of my beautiful beloved, the monstrous
little madwoman with her green eyes.”

And suddenly I received a violent punch in the back and I
heard a husky and charming voice, a hysterical voice, a voice
made hoarse with brandy, the voice of my dear little beloved,
saying, “Are you going to hurry up and eat your soup, or aren’t you,
you goddamn cloud merchant?”

--Charles Baudelaire

I may have been impregnated by aliens

2008-01-16T10:54:00.000-05:00

Aliens because no bassists have been around (in that particular pregnant-making way) in recent months and impregnated because I am acting in what I consider to be pregnantly ways. Or maybe I am just behaving in the manner of the Real Live Bona Fide Gen-u-ine Crazy Person I may have become.

To wit:

--I am nesting like a madwoman. The nesting includes all manner of intensive spring cleaning (yes, in mid-January--remember, pregnant with alien or batshit crazy), reorganizing, and redecorating plans. I have even hired my ex-boyfriend, The Bassist of 2005, to finish the Unfinished Built-in Bookshelves and Work Space of Doom--the bookshelves begun by Demetrius before he was hired to play bass for rhymes-with Dowie Hay and left in middle of the project to go on tour with that little punk-ass bitch, Dowie Hay. I tried to finish them, but in turns out I am not handy with wood. (Shut up, Beavis.) Narcissistic String Theory Guy added some touches here and there, because he enjoyed playing with curves and angles, but they have remained woefully unfinished, unpainted, and pretty much unusable. Enter The Bassist of 2005 to finish the job--this month, for an excellent rate. Hurrah! Yes, all the bassists I know are also carpenters, and I apparently have to have had sex with anyone who becomes involved with the shelf project.

--I want to eat everything in sight as long as it is: not good for me, fattening, and/or outrageously starchy, salty, or sweet. Right now I would eat nothing but chicken wings, hashbrowns, and Golden Oreos if I could. (Warning: Do not go the way of the Golden Oreo. I provide the link only so that you can learn to identify and avoid this dangerous cookie. It took me a full year to lose the 12 pounds I gained when I quit smoking pretty much by replacing cigarettes with Golden Oreos.)

--I am craaaaaaaanky. Yesterday I flipped off an elderly woman in a Buick (granted, she cut me off and made me skid on ice), had a fight on the phone with my dental hygienist (what do you mean I can't keep rescheduling my appointment at the last minute indefinitely??), and verbally castrated a couple of Uppity Boys* in my first class (usually I save verbal castration for week two at the earliest).

So what do you think? Am I with extraterrestrial child? Have I finally gone mad? (It occurs to me that the preceding two questions do not constitute an either/or proposition.) Or is it a deep dark cold days of winter thing? Do I just need a drink? An oreo? A bassist?

*Do you know the Uppity Boy type? The ones who try to undermine the authority of an attractive young(ish) professor by flirting with her in class discussion? I have been teaching only upper-level courses for a few semesters and so I haven't encountered it in quite awhile. Jesus, is it obnoxious.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-01-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

It's snowy in these parts, my friends. I looked like the above while shoveling for 2+ hours earlier today. I will try to clean myself up and look more like the below while teaching this week.

It's going to be pretty hard to rock my 3 1/2" fake Chloe boots on the icy paths I have to travel, but I shall find a way.

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 5

2008-01-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

The Hour of Eternity

"The Chinese
read the time
in the eyes
of cats,"
said Baudelaire
and went into
a jewelry store
on Market Street.
He came out
a few moments
later carrying
a twenty-one
jewel Siamese
cat that he
wore on the
end of a
golden chain.

I wrote a poem once featuring, in one line, alley cats spitting diamonds. Jewels and cats. I wonder if I was channeling Brautigan.

Just before I woke up this morning, I had a dream that I was having hashbrowns and doing cocaine with Dennis Hopper. Swear to god. Is that not a Brautigan line? I am dreaming in Brautiganese.

I wish I could stay in this dreamy poetic place, even (especially?) if I am all jacked up on dream coke. I am already feeling the pull of the semester's stress. I want to feel the excitement. I am happy about my classes, my students, my (impossible and tantalizing) research projects. But then there are the frustrations, mostly generating from The Toxic One--a whirlwind of audacious stupidity into which I have a hard time not being sucked. I did a really really good job of resisting its tug last semester. Must stay that path.

And until Monday? I am going to hang out with alley cats and iconoclasts and cokeheads.

Guess what you have not had enough of in the new year

2008-01-10T09:39:00.001-05:00

Chalupaness.

And so, voilà!

At Mama Bear's house in the Deep Red . . .

. . .and before the holiday with her best pal, Phooey.

Do you have a receipt for your excess baggage?

2008-01-09T18:29:00.001-05:00

Just for the record, I feel like I paid much much more for it than $75 USD.

Vivant

2008-01-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

Then something happened, something difficult to describe. Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I’d never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn’t know what. Maybe it was something I’d forgotten or something I’ve been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive.

Over the break I finally watched Paris, Je T'aime. I am totally in love with it. It is running a close tie with The Lives of Others for my favorite film of 2007, though I guess both technically came out in 2006. I was excited about it from the time I heard of it. A collection of short films by some of my favorite directors--including my very favorite, Alfonso Cuarón--and with a group of amazing actors, including my Maggie.

I did not expect "14e Arrondissement" by Alexander Payne to be one of my favorites, but it was. We find Carol, played by Margo Martindale, to be the most pathetic person in Paris. The fanny pack. The bad French. The dorky earnestness. But then . . .but then this moment, these lines, that look on her face.

Do you remember the NYC blizzard of February 2003 followed by the freakishly warm weather? I was there at that time with a lov-ah, one of the one real loves of my life, holed up in the Carlton Arms on the Lower East Side. The however-many-inches of snow was melting and slushing in the 60+ degrees heat, and we were lying on the bed with the windows open. I turned to him and said something to the effect of, "I remember wishing this, exactly this, a long time ago." I know, cheesy. But, oh my god, if you've ever felt it. Something both a memory and a desire, realized.

This week's wardrobe inspired by . . .

2008-01-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

I am a ridiculously avid reader of fashion blogs. For a couple of months now, I have been posting wardrobe inspiring pics on my sidebar each week. I have been surprised by how I tend think of them and follow them when I am getting dressed each day, whether it is the entire look or maybe just the shape or a touch of a certain color.

I thought I might start including them in a post each week when I renew the sidebar pics. If you click on them, here or on the sidebar, they will take you to the originating blog.

This week's edition: I don't have to look particularly professorial again until next week.

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 4

2008-01-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

The Flowerburgers

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, "Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it."
Baudelaire would give them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, "What kind
of hamburger stand
is this?"

The first Brautigan of the new year! Hurrah!

All is well in the Deep Red. The drama has died down, I am getting bendier and bendier and mellower and mellower with the stretching (it really makes you sore, though, huh?), and I feel truly relaxed for the first time in a while. If it's only for a day, I'll take it.

Today I am having lunch with my niece and then going for a little makeover of the Medusa locks at a NEW salon with a DIFFERENT stylist in THE DEEP RED. I know, livin' on the edge in the '08. This weekend, the Chalupa and I travel home.

Have a happy first weekend of the new year.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T12:13:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all! It's a beautiful day in the Deep Red. I have a couple more days here and then I shall return to Crowded American City. My New Year's thoughts are simple. I do not feel about 2007 as I did about 2006. All in all it was an okay year, which is what I think I wanted and needed--some stability. That said, I am looking forward to a sparkling fresh new year.

My New Year's resolutions tend to be tongue-in-cheek (e.g. the wildly doomed "budget for cocaine" of the coming-of-age decade), and I tend to make "real" resolutions only on my birthday (e.g. the wildly successful "quit smoking" of 2005). I have one this year, and I am quite serious about it: light stretching. By this I do NOT mean figurative stretching of any kind, i.e. intellectual, spiritual, creative--not that I am opposed to any of these, but these are things I tend to do easily and greedily and therefore do not need to resolve to do. No, by "light stretching," I actually mean literal light stretching of each part of the body each day. And do not even suggest that this sounds suspiciously like yoga or some other kind of Fascist Stretching Regimen. Note I did not say I resolve to be a fascist hippie in 2008.

There are other big and important things that I plan and want to do in the '08, but this is my one and only resolution. As I somehow decided in the comment thread about leftovers below, I am also bringing back my motto of the dissertation-finishing year, "It is what it is," for the '08. This is hilarious in many ways, to be explained when I return to regular blogging, but I am also quite serious about it. Other things I must remember to blog about: the most vile 24-hour illness I have ever had in my life, which I am convinced almost killed me and which I will refer to as simply The Evil and about which rest assured I will only discuss in the most metaphorical of details; the oh so very emotional, so very dramatic family visit; and the blindingly dazzling super-fabulousness of Lenny Kravitz (I feel I might save this one for Crazy Medusa's Lounge).

Until then, the Chalupa and I wish you the happiest of happy new years!

(Medusa image by David Revoy)

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 3

2007-12-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

1939

Baudelaire used to come
to our house and watch
me grind coffee.
That was in 1939
and we lived in the slums
of Tacoma.
My mother would put
the coffee beans in the grinder.
I was a child
and would turn the handle,
pretending that it was
a hurdy-gurdy,
and Baudelaire would pretend
that he was a monkey,
hopping up and down
and holding out
a tin cup.

Not much to report from the Deep Red except for far too much family drama. My family is afraid of everything, from Philip Pullman to leftovers. It's exhausting. I am an alien.