meestagoat

This morning in my half-sleep, I told John we should get a hamster named Bonkers. He would have a parachute and a helmet. I woke about half an hour later, after John had left for work, to find this note on my laptop:

Naturally, I told Jess about this latest instance of spaghetti language, and how much I really wanted a hamster named Bonkers except that Moxie would eat him. An hour or so later, she emails me this:



It's been a good day.

I've had a very nice week or two that I have not put on LJ at all. It included having a great time with rosewater  in Minneapolis for Kate's wedding reception, with lots of booze and lots of shopping; hanging out with multiple local friends in delightful ways; a nice Independence Day potluck at stargazzy's; getting prescription sunglasses for the first time in my life; and getting actual honest-to-god work done on my prospectus. All in all, pretty good. But all this good stuff has come with a price, and after fighting it off all week (mostly by sleeping way, way longer than I intended), I seem to have gotten sick--I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting sinus headache, and my right eye feels like a tiny man has decided to practice fencing behind it. I'm doped up on Israeli sudafed that John brought back (having been sick last week) and I feel like I'm wrapped in cotton.

On the bright side, my mom said "I miss you too" on the phone yesterday: the whole sentence, just like that. That's the longest thing she's said to me in six months or so. It was really nice.

I just watched The Children's Hour, which was quite interesting if melodramatic. Have you seen it? If so, what did you think?

I woke up reasonably well rested and utterly determined to do some kickass writing today.

Now that I've eaten breakfast, all I want to do is play puzzle quest. WHYYYYY

Well, hello, massive thunderstorms. How nice to see you. You couldn't have waited past, say, 3:30 am, though?

Gwendolyn Brooks is totally amazing.

( warning: sonnet sequence )

I finished my Simple Knitted Bodice! I am very pleased with it, although I wish I had worn a different bra in photos. :-) Oh well. There are more views on flickr, as usual.

Thanks to joanofarrgh for gifting me this pattern ages and ages ago!

I got elected to be representative to students in candidacy for the English Grad Students' Organization. Huzzah! Now let's just hope I make it to candidacy by fall, when I start the position.

I'm going to be one of two graduate liaisons for a new Poetry & Poetics humanities workshop next year.

Rather than teach comp in the fall, I've been asked to be a GA for a special project of the Writing Program to help them put together a web portal of writing and pedagogical materials for the university community. The Writing Program director asked me to join this project because he thinks both he and I would benefit more from doing advanced teaching work than doing intro writing for the fall quarter.

I dragged myself (and John) to the annual department party last night and actually had a pretty good time. Two of my committee members were there and both were very confident that I've put together a good team and that my prospectus will be good once it's, you know, written. Reassuring! Now if I could just make myself finish writing it...

I want every kneejerk anti-choicer ranting about "killing babies" to read this poem, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't get it.

The Mother

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
	children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
	and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

Gwendolyn Brooks

I dyed my hair black. Or rather, soft black, or black tea, depending on which side of the package you look at. I am deeply in need of a trim but otherwise I'm quite liking my hair. I went to the store planning to get some very dark brown color (something likely called a combination of midnight/espresso/chocolate/mahogany), but when I was there the black was most appealing. I am perverse and I like going darker for summer.

I had a great meeting with my advisor that made me feel much better about this whole "dissertation" thing.

I went out for G&Ts with Kate, and that is always awesome.

I watched The Terminator last night for the first time, thus continuing my vague plan of watching all those 80s movies that I have never sat through because I already know every plot point and catch phrase (see also: Die Hard, Alien(s), etc.). Apparently it sunk into my subconscious a bit.

rosewater  has ruined my ability to do anything productive, ever, by pointing me to this. Here are my first two efforts:





Post yours in the comments!

I have been acting as oral exam guru for one of my younger colleagues for the last few weeks, which has been interesting. We are giving her a mock oral tomorrow, so I have to come up with smart questions that might plausibly be asked. And holy shit, y'all, I am DUMB compared to Last Year Laura. I am going over my notes and it is incredibly hard to believe that at this time last year, I had all of this as working knowledge in my head. I seriously could not tell you very much about half these books now. HOWEVER, I could bullshit a conversation about them just fine, and I guess that's what orals are really about, in the end.


( click to see contents of my brain, one year ago )
Sure, I was real smarty smart then, but man I would not take on that stress again for anything.

Limbo

Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly

Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.

She waded in under
The sign of the cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.

Seamus Heaney

John and I saw Star Trek yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had never really watched Star Trek except for the occasional rerun until the last six months or so, when the original series became available on Instant Gratification Netflix. I've been thoroughly enjoying that, too--it's delightful to see that Spock is sassy as all hell, and that Kirk is, well, exactly as you except him to be. The Shatner-Nimoy magic cannot be denied.

My two main thoughts about the movie (besides "That was fun!"):
1. Young Spock is a hot little number.
2. Thank god they finally made the skirts long enough that the women don't have to show their asses every time they sit down! To compensate, of course, all the women are at least 3 sizes smaller than their '60s counterparts.

Laura: i ignore him but just the sight of his name fills me with rage
i'm like GOD WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE

Jess: he probably thinks it's very subtle performance art
where he carefully pisses off everyone he can see
but that gag is only clever in a just world

Laura: so true
well said
did you read that new yorker article about ian mcewan? apparently he and martin amis and hitchens are all friends--that's gotta be the most depressing party ever

Jess: oh jesus
i hope he and martin just liquor up and punch hitchens for four hours and then go home

I called her up and I said
You know that I'm drowning
Put on your raincoat again
'Cause even the sun's got a price on it
And there's something believin' in her voice again
Said there's something believin'
Instead of just leavin'

She said it's time I open my eyes
Don't be afraid to open your eyes
Maybe she's right
Maybe she's right
Maybe she's right
Maybe she's right
--The Wrong Band

I made this Spiral Cowl, but it came out too big (totally my fault, not the pattern's), so I Bainbridge-ified it and I think the sum is greater than its parts. I have so many scarves because I love making them, but now I realize it is all about the cowls.

I am going to cut out my fucking uterus one of these days, I swear.