Monday, 20 October 2008
Edinburgh
Got into Edinburgh last night, after a long, long day of travel. After the end of the train line in Newcastle (which is far larger and suburban than I would have thought), we had to run to catch our bus to Edinburgh, find a loo in the meanwhile. Once we boarded the bus, we were tired and sweaty and hungry. And it was almost three more hours and one stop in Berwick (that’s “Berrick” to you) upon Tweed. We had to laugh because it’s true that the further north you go from London, the less intelligible the English is – full of heavy accent and unfamiliar idioms. When the bus driver asked at B upon T if we need to use the toilets, it took me until we were well beyond the point of that possibility to determine what he had said to me. Once in Edinburgh, we walked out of the train station exhausted and feeling very pack-mule-esque. I was stunned by the beauty of this city at night – it was like arriving at Hogwarts, all lights and castles and stone work. Hills and water and the color green one can only find in the British Isles, I think. The one thing that is difficult here is the lack of street signs in convenient places. We paced up the block and back trying to locate ourselves on a map to figure out which direction to walk and finally resorted to a taxi. The driver laughed heartily at us because the hotel was a whopping two blocks from where we stood. He joked that he could have piggy-backed us there faster (but I can’t recall the term he used).
Thistle Edinburgh is a lovely little hotel that is much more posh than I expected for the price. It came out to just about $100 USD per night, and the room is modern, has flat-screen TV, tea service, closet space, internet, and even heated towel racks. And it’s smack in the center of everything. I joked that you couldn’t get this room in London for twice what we paid here. I hadn’t expected much, either, knowing how hotels in Europe typically work out to be tiny and outdated and overpriced. On another general note, the food round Edinburgh is also quite surprisingly diverse and tasty.
We awoke to traffic noise about 7:30 a.m. and got up and moving for a busy day. Our first order of business was breakfast, and we stopped into a local coffee shop for a caff jolt and some fresh cherry scones with jam. Yum. And water. I’m so dehydrated even after the regular chugging of H2O. We walked through the center of town, and I remarked that my occupational hazard (the scholarship required to study the Middle Ages and Renaissance) is that I imagine all of the UK to be in a perpetual state of Medieval. Not modern, even though I consciously know that it is. It feels strange to travel to Edinburgh by bus on a major interstate, for example. I fully expect the road to turn to dirt and people to be pushing carts alongside. This place is also considerably more hilly and steep than I would have thought – I’ve had quite the workout in the last 24 hours. After breakfast, we worked our way on foot toward the castle, which is so cool and all by itself worth the trip. I can see why JK Rowling used it as her model for Hogwarts – it makes perfect sense when you’re standing in front of it. After the castle, we wended down the Royal Mile, which is cobbled and touristy, but still pretty cool. Trekked through St. Giles Cathedral, which I adore, and went into a few whisky shops and such. Can I say, though, HOLY WIND? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Visited Mary King’s Close (all the remaining “closes” are really cool, too). Here is where things got a bit strange for me. It’s a tourist attraction and way commercialized as one of the underground sites – they try to scare you and tell you ghost stories and make loud noises, etc., but it feels a bit like an invasion to walk through there on a tour. Like you know you’re participating in something that isn’t being properly respected and it’s troublesome. So I went with it. In the livestock area, it’s a large room that would have been open to the sky above, but bricked over now, of course. Something about that room was all wrong and I couldn’t wait to leave it. When I left, I felt a hand on my shoulder and expected to find Sarah there but she wasn’t. No one was. I didn’t like that and it didn’t seem at all innocuous to me. In the room where people leave toys for the little girl named Annie who supposedly died there and is looking for her doll, I felt a wave of nausea wash over me and even my mouth got sour. I know that if I’d stayed in that room even one more minute I would have puked all over the floor. Sarah complained that when she went in there, she got an immediate stabbing headache like a migraine. Even after we moved away from the room the nausea waned, but I had to gobble some cinnamon mints to halt it entirely. On the whole, I’m glad I went there, but it haunts me a little even now.
While waiting for the Close tour, we had walked to see the Surgeon’s Hall and stopped into a great toy/comic shoppe called Forbidden Planet. They had dolls from The Goonies! Funny about this film is that I hadn’t thought of it in ages, but when we were talking about Hansel and Gretel stories in my class, I brought it up almost from random memory as a modern-day example of child heroes and fairy tales. I loved the film even though it’s campy and silly. Right after I mentioned it, the movie was on TV and I got to see it; the following week someone mentioned it to me in a completely different context, and then today, alas, a “Chunk” doll in a shoppe in Edinburgh. Weird.
We ate lunch at “Always Sunday,” which was a great little bistro type place where you can choose meal combinations and they are all healthy/nicely made. I had some herb bread with Scottish cheese, and a rocket salad with some tea and it was perfect. Oh, and some vanilla shortbread. Yum. From there we headed out to Holyrood House – the royal residence for the Queen when she is in Scotland. My favorite part was the remains of the Abbey that still sit beside the palace. The weather switched from sunny and clear to cloudy and rainy – any my favorite combination, the clear blue sky with rain (?) – all day long and started to get nasty as we left Holyrood. We had to trek back to our hotel in the wind and rain, which was intensely un-fun but short lived. At that point, naps were in order in lieu of afternoon tea. As soon as I got up, I stuck my hand into my cosmetic bag and took a rather unsettlingly large chunk out of my right index finger. It bled like a mo-fo and still hurts. I had to later locate a box of band-aids and something akin to Neosporin, and imagine trying to explain this to a clerk in a store in Edinburgh, where these things are called “cushioned plasters” and “Germolene.” Mind you, they are manufactured by the same company in both countries, but called something entirely different. I’m properly bandaged now.
Finally, we regrouped, cleaned up (I can’t tell you how the UK weather makes me feel like I’m in a constant state of slimy), and went for dinner at a pub called The Mitre, where the story goes that it’s named after a Bishop who fled Charles I’s religious imposition sometime in the mid 1630’s and was eventually executed. I’ll have to check my notes on that to be sure, however. Sarah had smoked haddock/potato/cheddar patties on a salad and I had pumpkin/marscapone/tarragon risotto – both of which were fantastic meals and especially since it was pub fare. Drank Caledonia ale. The literary pub tour – naturally – didn’t go on Mondays, so we made up our own. Stopped into “The Last Drop” (whose sign is a noose, and located in a former public gallows spot), “The White Hart” and one other I don’t recall, but we tasted scotch, encountered long-haired men in kilts singing along to Britney Spears (you think I jest…), and finally stumbled back to the hotel for a CNN update and showers.
21 October 2008
19 October 2008
Untie me, I've said no vow; the train is getting way too loud
Sunday, 19 October 2008
10:17 a.m. OR 5:17 p.m., depending on which of my clocks one consults
So far, the journey is long and a bit disorienting. Our flight left a bit late but arrived on time (a mystery that someone will need to one day explain to me). I originally had three seats to sleep, but someone moved into the third spot and thus my sleep was truncated by frequent need to shift position every time my head fell forward. I’m thankful now that I spent a good hour napping yesterday afternoon. Watched Iron Man over and over. I love this film, and since when is Robert Downey, Jr. hot?
I tried to spend some time eavesdropping, as usual, but only heard a single word in the din of conversation: “saturated” which is indeed an odd word to hear both in and out of context. It doesn’t sound like it looks, with the emphasis on the “tch” sound in the middle there. I’m getting loopier, I think.
At first it appeared that my luggage had been lost, and this was dismaying, but I can tell I’m on vacation because it didn’t immediately fire up my rage instinct as this would have done in Denver. Odd. It was quickly located, gods be praised, and we hit the Tube to King’s Cross, and giggled the entire way every time the train voice announced that we were on a train headed for “Cockfosters” (it’s one of those immature moments like “duty free” when it’s hard not to giggle at “doodie”- I’m glad Sarah thinks this its similarly funny or I’d just feel stupid). So somewhere near Kensington two girls get on the train and sit opposite us; they are clearly American from their outfits and then when they begin speaking, we realize that they are from DU. Oy. I thought I’d be further from home by now. Fake tans, over-white teeth, matching fashion, and a compelling discussion about the blond’s Louis Vuitton bag were our bane for the next several Tube stops. Sarah and I have vowed to not talk about DU – dissertations and people there are in-bounds, but politics and griping are not. How lovely.
Got to KC, got tickets, drinks of water, and then pretty much straight on the train, from whence I currently write this. The countryside is beautiful, and it’s easy to see how Harry Potter could only happen here. I can feel it when I get off the plane, and when I see the rows of suburban homes I can only think about Number Four Privet Drive and the owls arriving there. I do rather wish Sarah was here with me (she’s in another car), but the solitude works just as well. It’s great to be far from home, anonymous, and even invisible. No students here. No colleagues. No pompous fellow grad students. Despite my exhaustion, I feel like writing a whole novel right now. And if my battery on the laptop would last or I had the faintest idea where the adapter for my cord was so I could plug in, I’d be at it right now.
Smells are funny things to me. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I remembered instantly the smell of London and I missed it, the same way I missed it before I knew it when I was here a year ago. Just try to tell me that our souls aren’t recycled… Anyway, someone on the train in my vicinity is wearing CK One and this too takes me back in interesting ways – I used to wear it myself at a time in my life when things were tumultuous and that is odd, but the way it’s mixed with a slight smell of alcohol breath is comforting to me. It reminds me of Jamison and I simply adore his scent, which is a keen mixture of his natural scent, deodorant, and alcohol breath (only occasionally on the latter, of course). The smell reminds me of home and it’s nice. That’s all. Just nice.
It’s getting dark and soon I won’t be able to see much out the window, I suppose, but the train ride is still pleasant. I do wonder, however, why my Blogger and Facebook come up in a foreign language in an English-speaking country. I don’t recognize the language, either, but I find it amusing that the default is something akin to Swedish.
10:17 a.m. OR 5:17 p.m., depending on which of my clocks one consults
So far, the journey is long and a bit disorienting. Our flight left a bit late but arrived on time (a mystery that someone will need to one day explain to me). I originally had three seats to sleep, but someone moved into the third spot and thus my sleep was truncated by frequent need to shift position every time my head fell forward. I’m thankful now that I spent a good hour napping yesterday afternoon. Watched Iron Man over and over. I love this film, and since when is Robert Downey, Jr. hot?
I tried to spend some time eavesdropping, as usual, but only heard a single word in the din of conversation: “saturated” which is indeed an odd word to hear both in and out of context. It doesn’t sound like it looks, with the emphasis on the “tch” sound in the middle there. I’m getting loopier, I think.
At first it appeared that my luggage had been lost, and this was dismaying, but I can tell I’m on vacation because it didn’t immediately fire up my rage instinct as this would have done in Denver. Odd. It was quickly located, gods be praised, and we hit the Tube to King’s Cross, and giggled the entire way every time the train voice announced that we were on a train headed for “Cockfosters” (it’s one of those immature moments like “duty free” when it’s hard not to giggle at “doodie”- I’m glad Sarah thinks this its similarly funny or I’d just feel stupid). So somewhere near Kensington two girls get on the train and sit opposite us; they are clearly American from their outfits and then when they begin speaking, we realize that they are from DU. Oy. I thought I’d be further from home by now. Fake tans, over-white teeth, matching fashion, and a compelling discussion about the blond’s Louis Vuitton bag were our bane for the next several Tube stops. Sarah and I have vowed to not talk about DU – dissertations and people there are in-bounds, but politics and griping are not. How lovely.
Got to KC, got tickets, drinks of water, and then pretty much straight on the train, from whence I currently write this. The countryside is beautiful, and it’s easy to see how Harry Potter could only happen here. I can feel it when I get off the plane, and when I see the rows of suburban homes I can only think about Number Four Privet Drive and the owls arriving there. I do rather wish Sarah was here with me (she’s in another car), but the solitude works just as well. It’s great to be far from home, anonymous, and even invisible. No students here. No colleagues. No pompous fellow grad students. Despite my exhaustion, I feel like writing a whole novel right now. And if my battery on the laptop would last or I had the faintest idea where the adapter for my cord was so I could plug in, I’d be at it right now.
Smells are funny things to me. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I remembered instantly the smell of London and I missed it, the same way I missed it before I knew it when I was here a year ago. Just try to tell me that our souls aren’t recycled… Anyway, someone on the train in my vicinity is wearing CK One and this too takes me back in interesting ways – I used to wear it myself at a time in my life when things were tumultuous and that is odd, but the way it’s mixed with a slight smell of alcohol breath is comforting to me. It reminds me of Jamison and I simply adore his scent, which is a keen mixture of his natural scent, deodorant, and alcohol breath (only occasionally on the latter, of course). The smell reminds me of home and it’s nice. That’s all. Just nice.
It’s getting dark and soon I won’t be able to see much out the window, I suppose, but the train ride is still pleasant. I do wonder, however, why my Blogger and Facebook come up in a foreign language in an English-speaking country. I don’t recognize the language, either, but I find it amusing that the default is something akin to Swedish.
16 October 2008
Pro-Choice is NOT "Pro-Abortion"
Dear John McCain:
There is no such thing as "pro-abortion." No one anywhere, anytime "promotes" abortion. It's terrible, and as a man you will never know what it's like to make a decision to keep or end a pregnancy. The procedure is painful. It's unpleasant. No one ever jumps up and says "oh boy, it's abortion day!" or "Gosh, I can't wait to find myself pregnant again so I can have another one of those - it was great fun!" or "thank goodness I was raped by my drunken stepfather and find myself pregnant at 13 - thank the gods I can skip happily past the protesters at the local Planned Parenthood." Come ON. Nothing about abortion is simple - emotionally, physically, or spiritually. These decisions are never made lightly and the resulting trauma of having to do it is not something any woman who undergoes the procedure ever forgets. I'm sick to death of self-righteous pricks like you who think that anyone who supports a woman's right to choose for herself what's best is the enemy. It's pricks like you who also condone abstinence-only education with the same kind of unmitigated ignorance to the fact that people have sex, have always had sex, and always will. Of all ages. All walks of life. And a whole lot of that sex is neither consensual nor a good idea but that doesn't change the outcome, does it?
When you and your wife, Cruella de Vil were so righteously adopting your children, I'm guessing that the offspring of a 13-year-old crack whore was not on your list of acceptables.
I'm also guessing that if it turned out YOUR daughter was raped and pregnant at 12, you'd change your tune pretty quickly, especially being in the public eye. What would such a bit of news do to your "distinguished" career as a "maverick"?
Senator, I don't believe there is a single person in the world who doesn't wish that we could permanently eliminate any need for abortions - that we could somehow solve every issue that leads to unwanted pregnancy with some finality but there is nothing realistic about such a wish. Neither does that preclude the fact that we live in a world where abortions are necessary, and for a host of reasons for which I choose not to be a judge.
Why is it so hard for you and your ilk, Senator McCain, to accept that women (frail as we may be in mind and spirit) can make these decisions for ourselves (notice I say "our" because you're not part of this club, my friend)? Why do you find it so utterly pressing to impose your ideas and values upon others in this regard when you yourself have never been there and never will be?
Pro-choice is just that: the promotion of choice among free thinking individuals to decide what is best for their own families and individual lives. I don't believe abortion is "right" so I didn't have one when faced with the decision, and as far as I am concerned, that's the only part I have here. I would never presume to judge another woman for any choice she makes in this regard, but only that she do what she feels is best for her at the time, and for this she has my full and unwavering support.
Pro-abortion? Not a chance. Pro-choice? You bet, and across the board, motherfucker. Mind your own damn business, Senator McCain (and tell that to your little lap dog too).
Sincerely,
Middle-Class White American Mother Who Finds You Morally Reprehensible
(so you can stop targeting me with your stupid phone calls)
There is no such thing as "pro-abortion." No one anywhere, anytime "promotes" abortion. It's terrible, and as a man you will never know what it's like to make a decision to keep or end a pregnancy. The procedure is painful. It's unpleasant. No one ever jumps up and says "oh boy, it's abortion day!" or "Gosh, I can't wait to find myself pregnant again so I can have another one of those - it was great fun!" or "thank goodness I was raped by my drunken stepfather and find myself pregnant at 13 - thank the gods I can skip happily past the protesters at the local Planned Parenthood." Come ON. Nothing about abortion is simple - emotionally, physically, or spiritually. These decisions are never made lightly and the resulting trauma of having to do it is not something any woman who undergoes the procedure ever forgets. I'm sick to death of self-righteous pricks like you who think that anyone who supports a woman's right to choose for herself what's best is the enemy. It's pricks like you who also condone abstinence-only education with the same kind of unmitigated ignorance to the fact that people have sex, have always had sex, and always will. Of all ages. All walks of life. And a whole lot of that sex is neither consensual nor a good idea but that doesn't change the outcome, does it?
When you and your wife, Cruella de Vil were so righteously adopting your children, I'm guessing that the offspring of a 13-year-old crack whore was not on your list of acceptables.
I'm also guessing that if it turned out YOUR daughter was raped and pregnant at 12, you'd change your tune pretty quickly, especially being in the public eye. What would such a bit of news do to your "distinguished" career as a "maverick"?
Senator, I don't believe there is a single person in the world who doesn't wish that we could permanently eliminate any need for abortions - that we could somehow solve every issue that leads to unwanted pregnancy with some finality but there is nothing realistic about such a wish. Neither does that preclude the fact that we live in a world where abortions are necessary, and for a host of reasons for which I choose not to be a judge.
Why is it so hard for you and your ilk, Senator McCain, to accept that women (frail as we may be in mind and spirit) can make these decisions for ourselves (notice I say "our" because you're not part of this club, my friend)? Why do you find it so utterly pressing to impose your ideas and values upon others in this regard when you yourself have never been there and never will be?
Pro-choice is just that: the promotion of choice among free thinking individuals to decide what is best for their own families and individual lives. I don't believe abortion is "right" so I didn't have one when faced with the decision, and as far as I am concerned, that's the only part I have here. I would never presume to judge another woman for any choice she makes in this regard, but only that she do what she feels is best for her at the time, and for this she has my full and unwavering support.
Pro-abortion? Not a chance. Pro-choice? You bet, and across the board, motherfucker. Mind your own damn business, Senator McCain (and tell that to your little lap dog too).
Sincerely,
Middle-Class White American Mother Who Finds You Morally Reprehensible
(so you can stop targeting me with your stupid phone calls)
Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding
Today's news report included a story that says cigarette smoking is bad for your health. What a relief that I stumbled across this piece of information; I'd been living under the assumption that smokers are the ideal picture of good health. Wow. There must be nothing else going on in the world, like - uh, I don't know - war, genocide, mass foreclosures and the failure of the worldwide banking system. Glad those news folks are on the ball.
After watching the final debate (for no apparent reason, really, as I made my decision before the primaries ended), I conclude that John McCain could say he believes just about anything at this point and I couldn't muster even one ounce of respect for this man. He's glib, smug, and the fact that he cannot keep his temper in check on international television makes me sick. His nasty attitude, derisive chuckles, and obvious disdain for Obama doesn't offend me in the sense that Obama can't take care of himself against big, mean McCain, but that such behavior speaks to McCain's character. He can't even be gracious. He can't take the high road. He can't even fake the appearance of tolerance for anyone who doesn't see things his way. In short, he comes across as a bully and a jerk. Anyone who isn't frightened by this aspect of his character in relation to dealing with other world leaders should be. Our reputation is tarnished enough and I'm sick of being represented in the world by angry old men who don't believe the world has changed in the last twenty years. If McCain is so sure he can effect real change, "get" Osama bin Laden, then why the fuck hasn't he in the last 26 years in Congress? I want to punch him in the face, and kick his lame-brained vapid running mate. I get why people don't like Obama or liberals for that matter, but how anyone supports this ticket is genuinely beyond my comprehension.
The other thing that has me unsettled of late is that every time I see a McCain sticker on a vehicle, it's almost always a truck or SUV. The driver almost always male, and certainly wearing a baseball cap despite his age. Even walking across campus, the only McCain buttons I see on backpacks are sported by similarly generic, white-boy American types with ball caps, Oakley sunglasses, Levi jeans and tennis shoes on.
All the McCain supporters look the same to me.
After watching the final debate (for no apparent reason, really, as I made my decision before the primaries ended), I conclude that John McCain could say he believes just about anything at this point and I couldn't muster even one ounce of respect for this man. He's glib, smug, and the fact that he cannot keep his temper in check on international television makes me sick. His nasty attitude, derisive chuckles, and obvious disdain for Obama doesn't offend me in the sense that Obama can't take care of himself against big, mean McCain, but that such behavior speaks to McCain's character. He can't even be gracious. He can't take the high road. He can't even fake the appearance of tolerance for anyone who doesn't see things his way. In short, he comes across as a bully and a jerk. Anyone who isn't frightened by this aspect of his character in relation to dealing with other world leaders should be. Our reputation is tarnished enough and I'm sick of being represented in the world by angry old men who don't believe the world has changed in the last twenty years. If McCain is so sure he can effect real change, "get" Osama bin Laden, then why the fuck hasn't he in the last 26 years in Congress? I want to punch him in the face, and kick his lame-brained vapid running mate. I get why people don't like Obama or liberals for that matter, but how anyone supports this ticket is genuinely beyond my comprehension.
The other thing that has me unsettled of late is that every time I see a McCain sticker on a vehicle, it's almost always a truck or SUV. The driver almost always male, and certainly wearing a baseball cap despite his age. Even walking across campus, the only McCain buttons I see on backpacks are sported by similarly generic, white-boy American types with ball caps, Oakley sunglasses, Levi jeans and tennis shoes on.
All the McCain supporters look the same to me.
14 October 2008
I know how the best will fall and the rest will follow
Unmotivated does not begin to cover the feeling I have toward my dissertation these days. I got up early this morning so I could make to school early so I could have time to write before class so I could turn in the draft of something I am supposed to have produced by today.
Needless to say, it's 8 a.m., class starts in half an hour, and all I've managed to do thus far is save a blank document (lord knows I wouldn't want to lose that) and grouse about how much I don't want to do this today. What's worse is that I haven't done the work for the course and I don't care. It's become a real problem that there is no sense of impending doom in my academic world anymore and I never knew how much I needed it - that I required the threat of failure in order to produce real work. Then there's the issue of what I'm actually doing in this class, because I don't go to class, I'm not really following a syllabus, and the expectations for my work production are - at best - hazy.
I am aware that sooner or later this dissertation thing will need to be written. I may actually have to procure something that looks like research, and I might have to sweat a little. Right now, however, these things have inspired no action in me whatsoever.
Needless to say, it's 8 a.m., class starts in half an hour, and all I've managed to do thus far is save a blank document (lord knows I wouldn't want to lose that) and grouse about how much I don't want to do this today. What's worse is that I haven't done the work for the course and I don't care. It's become a real problem that there is no sense of impending doom in my academic world anymore and I never knew how much I needed it - that I required the threat of failure in order to produce real work. Then there's the issue of what I'm actually doing in this class, because I don't go to class, I'm not really following a syllabus, and the expectations for my work production are - at best - hazy.
I am aware that sooner or later this dissertation thing will need to be written. I may actually have to procure something that looks like research, and I might have to sweat a little. Right now, however, these things have inspired no action in me whatsoever.
11 October 2008
Melancholy is one of my favorite words. Ennui on the other hand, not so much.
What I dig about the English language is that it's never been its own language at all, but merely the amalgamation and assimilation of other languages. But that's really another entry and perhaps a journal article, so I won't bore you on this gloomy Sunday morning with such matters.
The word "melancholy" intrigues me today. Its etymology pairs the Greek words meaning "black" and "bile" and thus refers to the excess of this humour, which causes depression and a period of deep sadness. My beloved OED does not, however, note the many benefits of the temporary increase of black humour, a fact which I have most recently discovered.
I came home from Reno feeling a little soul-depleted. Conferences are typically not fun places to be as a general rule, but conferences in casino hotels are even less so. I don't gamble and I rarely drink and I find that cigarette smoke in any form makes me feel nauseated. To be surrounded by all of these things simultaneously for even a short period is taxing to my senses. It makes me grouchy to take a shower and put on clean clothes only to discover that they smell like a bingo hall. Thus I smell like a bingo hall. There is no place to escape in a casino, either. Even finding the outdoors becomes a chore.
Our panel group was spectacular and the presentation part was lovely, even though the hotel put us into the bowels of the building and told no one of this - quite amusing. Hearing the papers for the panel I chaired was illuminating. I somehow managed to pull together four people who are all the same age and interested in the same things. We went to dinner afterward at a darn-good Mexican food joint called Miguel's, and the one thing Reno clearly has that Vegas doesn't is small-town politeness; for all its grit, Reno's townfolk seem really midwestern in their encounters with others, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. It's a place where older women with raspy voices call you "honey" but they mean it so it's okay. Both cab drivers to and from the restaurant were chatty and reminded me of how NYC cabbies would be if they weren't so regularly beleagured by rude tourists: kinda edgy, but happy for the company in an otherwise lonely job. We tipped the hell out of both of them. It was nice to spend time with other scholarly folk who don't subscribe to the pretension of scholars - those who forge their own paths without regard to status quo. We closed the restaurant down talking about teaching and books and movies and telling jokes. I had a nice time, but after a bit, I get tired of being around others and this is never personal.
It's hard to be overstimulated for too long - by surroundings, people - and the worst for me is when I have to perform for too long. Most people don't understand what this means, but as a reasonably introverted person, it's a lot of work to be around others, and even more so with others I don't know well. By the end of any given week of teaching, I feel like a car running on fumes. I need refueling and some down time, and I didn't get it in Reno to be sure. By the time I arrived in Denver, every single person in that airport was on my list. Too many people with too many smells, too many calls to be polite, too many things and individuals bumping into me or touching me, and it all gets to me. When Jamison picked me up with his visiting friend who's staying with us for the weekend, all I could do was lie down in the back seat and close my eyes so I didn't have to be polite or talk. Again, it's nothing personal; I just need some cave time.
I get depressed in this state, and everything quickly becomes overwhelming. School and work and teaching and family time and friends and even having to eat sounds like work and I get all existential about what the point of any of it is when we're just going to die anyway. Melancholy. Not ennui, as Jamison calls it. I feel quite certain at these moments that black bile is all that courses through my veins, and while it doesn't sound so, it's a positive thing in the end.
Most of Saturday was dedicated to being alone in the house whilst it rained, wearing my PJs and watching crap television and playing mindless computer games. One should never underestimate the need for Pajama Day, nor its many benefits. Nothing can revive my state of mind and top up my soul depletion quite like a self-indulgent day crammed with pointlessness and quiet. Today is full of renewal and I embrace the cold wet weather and look forward now to a trip abroad in less than a week. Perhaps the way to rebalance one's humours is not to up the level of the others to compensate, but to let the excess do its work.
The word "melancholy" intrigues me today. Its etymology pairs the Greek words meaning "black" and "bile" and thus refers to the excess of this humour, which causes depression and a period of deep sadness. My beloved OED does not, however, note the many benefits of the temporary increase of black humour, a fact which I have most recently discovered.
I came home from Reno feeling a little soul-depleted. Conferences are typically not fun places to be as a general rule, but conferences in casino hotels are even less so. I don't gamble and I rarely drink and I find that cigarette smoke in any form makes me feel nauseated. To be surrounded by all of these things simultaneously for even a short period is taxing to my senses. It makes me grouchy to take a shower and put on clean clothes only to discover that they smell like a bingo hall. Thus I smell like a bingo hall. There is no place to escape in a casino, either. Even finding the outdoors becomes a chore.
Our panel group was spectacular and the presentation part was lovely, even though the hotel put us into the bowels of the building and told no one of this - quite amusing. Hearing the papers for the panel I chaired was illuminating. I somehow managed to pull together four people who are all the same age and interested in the same things. We went to dinner afterward at a darn-good Mexican food joint called Miguel's, and the one thing Reno clearly has that Vegas doesn't is small-town politeness; for all its grit, Reno's townfolk seem really midwestern in their encounters with others, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. It's a place where older women with raspy voices call you "honey" but they mean it so it's okay. Both cab drivers to and from the restaurant were chatty and reminded me of how NYC cabbies would be if they weren't so regularly beleagured by rude tourists: kinda edgy, but happy for the company in an otherwise lonely job. We tipped the hell out of both of them. It was nice to spend time with other scholarly folk who don't subscribe to the pretension of scholars - those who forge their own paths without regard to status quo. We closed the restaurant down talking about teaching and books and movies and telling jokes. I had a nice time, but after a bit, I get tired of being around others and this is never personal.
It's hard to be overstimulated for too long - by surroundings, people - and the worst for me is when I have to perform for too long. Most people don't understand what this means, but as a reasonably introverted person, it's a lot of work to be around others, and even more so with others I don't know well. By the end of any given week of teaching, I feel like a car running on fumes. I need refueling and some down time, and I didn't get it in Reno to be sure. By the time I arrived in Denver, every single person in that airport was on my list. Too many people with too many smells, too many calls to be polite, too many things and individuals bumping into me or touching me, and it all gets to me. When Jamison picked me up with his visiting friend who's staying with us for the weekend, all I could do was lie down in the back seat and close my eyes so I didn't have to be polite or talk. Again, it's nothing personal; I just need some cave time.
I get depressed in this state, and everything quickly becomes overwhelming. School and work and teaching and family time and friends and even having to eat sounds like work and I get all existential about what the point of any of it is when we're just going to die anyway. Melancholy. Not ennui, as Jamison calls it. I feel quite certain at these moments that black bile is all that courses through my veins, and while it doesn't sound so, it's a positive thing in the end.
Most of Saturday was dedicated to being alone in the house whilst it rained, wearing my PJs and watching crap television and playing mindless computer games. One should never underestimate the need for Pajama Day, nor its many benefits. Nothing can revive my state of mind and top up my soul depletion quite like a self-indulgent day crammed with pointlessness and quiet. Today is full of renewal and I embrace the cold wet weather and look forward now to a trip abroad in less than a week. Perhaps the way to rebalance one's humours is not to up the level of the others to compensate, but to let the excess do its work.
Hee-larious
It's true one can never really know what happens to our ephemeral rantings in spaces like this-here blog, but the one thing I feel certain about is that in this democratic (perhaps even anarchistic) space, one is entitled to say whatever one wishes to say and in whatever manner. I espouse this right in any case, and if someone wants to try to censor me, then so be it. I write things often that I fear will offend the random reader, and even more often I write that which I sincerely hope will offend the random reader. Because I can. When I write random rants about my loathing of all things Republican and Sarah Palin in particular, I prepare for angry responses from those who stumble across my blog and mutter the word "liberal" as if it were the worst possible insult.
But when I write random expressions about moments in time I experience, I never expect that I've offended anyone enough for them to write to me about it. Please note the following email I got this morning:
Dave Mencarelli has left a new comment on your post "I hear the train a'comin, right on down the line":
I imagine there are two square block areas of Denver that could be described as unseamly also. Thanks for the review of a town where I've lived for 16 years and thoroughly enjoyed the fact I could watch someone discuss world events with their meal if I so desired. Oh to be lucky enough to live somewhere where the hoity toityness of life in academia can make you look down your nose at senior citizens confined to scooters. I'm making my flight resevations RIGHT NOW!
I don't know who this person is, but it's hilarious to me that of all the things I have said on this blog, this is the one thing that has apparently offended the unknown-to-me reader. The fact that I've offended him does not bother me, but I would like offer the following rebuttal:
1. Blogs are spaces of free speech. If you don't like my opinions, writing, world view, my academic status, gender, politics, taste in music, verbosity, or affinity for the semi-colon, don't read my blog.
2. I look down my nose at all people equally, and to suggest I confine it only to senior citizens in scooters is outrageous. (That's a joke, so freakin' re-lax already.)
3. Of course there's a lot of unseamly-ness in every city everywhere in the world, and if someone chose to point it out even in places I love, so what? Come to Denver, Mr. Whoever-You-Are and I'll even show you the depressing and sad parts where you probably wouldn't want to be holed up for a weekend either.
4. "Reservations" has two R's in it, and please do make those right away. I understand that ski season is rapidly approaching and our mountain views here are spectacular, even on smog days.
Thanks for making my Saturday morning. Really. Awesome.
But when I write random expressions about moments in time I experience, I never expect that I've offended anyone enough for them to write to me about it. Please note the following email I got this morning:
Dave Mencarelli has left a new comment on your post "I hear the train a'comin, right on down the line":
I imagine there are two square block areas of Denver that could be described as unseamly also. Thanks for the review of a town where I've lived for 16 years and thoroughly enjoyed the fact I could watch someone discuss world events with their meal if I so desired. Oh to be lucky enough to live somewhere where the hoity toityness of life in academia can make you look down your nose at senior citizens confined to scooters. I'm making my flight resevations RIGHT NOW!
I don't know who this person is, but it's hilarious to me that of all the things I have said on this blog, this is the one thing that has apparently offended the unknown-to-me reader. The fact that I've offended him does not bother me, but I would like offer the following rebuttal:
1. Blogs are spaces of free speech. If you don't like my opinions, writing, world view, my academic status, gender, politics, taste in music, verbosity, or affinity for the semi-colon, don't read my blog.
2. I look down my nose at all people equally, and to suggest I confine it only to senior citizens in scooters is outrageous. (That's a joke, so freakin' re-lax already.)
3. Of course there's a lot of unseamly-ness in every city everywhere in the world, and if someone chose to point it out even in places I love, so what? Come to Denver, Mr. Whoever-You-Are and I'll even show you the depressing and sad parts where you probably wouldn't want to be holed up for a weekend either.
4. "Reservations" has two R's in it, and please do make those right away. I understand that ski season is rapidly approaching and our mountain views here are spectacular, even on smog days.
Thanks for making my Saturday morning. Really. Awesome.
10 October 2008
I hear the train a'comin, right on down the line
It's early morning in Reno and as I look out my 23rd-floor window, I note that (a) the garish casino lights are still on, and by daylight they are more garish than ever; (b) the sun is shining from the east, but it's snowing; and (c) this place is infinitely depressing. Yesterday I went walkabout and trolled the cheap, tacky crap stores. The best store is about two blocks away and the best thing is that in addition to the oddly overdressed "dolls" and 1970's glass frogs, they sell lighters 10 for $1 and coffee mugs are 3 for 99 cents. The best part about the latter is that the mugs are all from Milwaukee. Did I mention that it's sunny and snowing?
Reno is another world, like much of Nevada seems to be. Such strange vibes here. I have been to Vegas many times and even though I kind of like it, I have an exactly 22-hour threshold of tolerance for the cigarette smoke, slot machines, lights and whistles, and crowds of people. I get easily frustrated by the labyrinthine engineering of these buildings, which are designed to make everything BUT slot machines impossible to locate. I get the marketing technique, but if you don't gamble and are staying in a Harrah's casino, say, for an academic conference, you may share my irritation of not being able to achieve goals of being certain places at certain times. You know that when the Starbucks takes work to find, you're in a place that doesn't subscribe to typical rules of capitalism, or at least in a place that prioritizes its capitalistic goals and they don't include Starbucks per se.
After our panel session yesterday, Charly and I crossed the street to obtain the advertised 32-oz., $5 margarita (in its own souvenir cup, no less). The best part is that the souvenir cup hails the drink as the "Asskicker," which in no way kicked my ass, which speaks loudly to the watered-down nature of it because a real margarita of such proportions would have required a long nap or a trip to detox for me. In said bar, where Charly and I caught up and he told me his story of how he proposed to his girlfriend (after all these years, who knew this man was so brilliantly romantic?), I watched a heavy man with scraggly long hair eat entire bags of peanuts at a time. You know, the ones that are 99-cent tubes. He had at least four of them and tipped his head back, eating the entire tube one rather disgusting mouthful after another. He stood at the tall bar table and tipped his head as he ate the peanuts so he could not take his eyes off of the UFC-style match going on the TV over the bar. He glared at us a few times, and I kept wondering if he thought we coveted his prized peanuts or was plotting how to murder us out behind the bar. He had a crazed, Manson expression and a twitchy quality and then when I looked for him again, he was gone.
A young woman came in some time later, and appeared to be about twelve, but was clearly old enough to drink. She wore a hoodie with the hood up and tied around her face, and was nearly as wide as she was tall. She ordered a burger and fries, and then proceeded to engage the meal in some kind of conversation. I wonder if there's a big meth problem in this city. I wouldn't be surprised, of course, as this place feels distinctly like the movie set of a bad after-school movie. No one here is pretty, and people on the street in the middle of the day have a desperate air about them that is deeply unsettling. Old people totter around and ride scooters, and they chain smoke cheap cigarettes and wear mismatched clothes on their disturbingly overweight bodies. And who knew Reno was a haven for seriously unattractive lesbians who are not shy about public displays of affection? I have never witnessed so many ugly couples behaving in ugly ways. How odd.
I'm glad to be leaving here today. I don't know how anyone lives here. It's snowing harder now, with larger flakes sweeping angrily past the window.
Reno is another world, like much of Nevada seems to be. Such strange vibes here. I have been to Vegas many times and even though I kind of like it, I have an exactly 22-hour threshold of tolerance for the cigarette smoke, slot machines, lights and whistles, and crowds of people. I get easily frustrated by the labyrinthine engineering of these buildings, which are designed to make everything BUT slot machines impossible to locate. I get the marketing technique, but if you don't gamble and are staying in a Harrah's casino, say, for an academic conference, you may share my irritation of not being able to achieve goals of being certain places at certain times. You know that when the Starbucks takes work to find, you're in a place that doesn't subscribe to typical rules of capitalism, or at least in a place that prioritizes its capitalistic goals and they don't include Starbucks per se.
After our panel session yesterday, Charly and I crossed the street to obtain the advertised 32-oz., $5 margarita (in its own souvenir cup, no less). The best part is that the souvenir cup hails the drink as the "Asskicker," which in no way kicked my ass, which speaks loudly to the watered-down nature of it because a real margarita of such proportions would have required a long nap or a trip to detox for me. In said bar, where Charly and I caught up and he told me his story of how he proposed to his girlfriend (after all these years, who knew this man was so brilliantly romantic?), I watched a heavy man with scraggly long hair eat entire bags of peanuts at a time. You know, the ones that are 99-cent tubes. He had at least four of them and tipped his head back, eating the entire tube one rather disgusting mouthful after another. He stood at the tall bar table and tipped his head as he ate the peanuts so he could not take his eyes off of the UFC-style match going on the TV over the bar. He glared at us a few times, and I kept wondering if he thought we coveted his prized peanuts or was plotting how to murder us out behind the bar. He had a crazed, Manson expression and a twitchy quality and then when I looked for him again, he was gone.
A young woman came in some time later, and appeared to be about twelve, but was clearly old enough to drink. She wore a hoodie with the hood up and tied around her face, and was nearly as wide as she was tall. She ordered a burger and fries, and then proceeded to engage the meal in some kind of conversation. I wonder if there's a big meth problem in this city. I wouldn't be surprised, of course, as this place feels distinctly like the movie set of a bad after-school movie. No one here is pretty, and people on the street in the middle of the day have a desperate air about them that is deeply unsettling. Old people totter around and ride scooters, and they chain smoke cheap cigarettes and wear mismatched clothes on their disturbingly overweight bodies. And who knew Reno was a haven for seriously unattractive lesbians who are not shy about public displays of affection? I have never witnessed so many ugly couples behaving in ugly ways. How odd.
I'm glad to be leaving here today. I don't know how anyone lives here. It's snowing harder now, with larger flakes sweeping angrily past the window.
06 October 2008
For all you do, his blood's for you
No kidding. This is the sign on the church near my house that I drive by each morning. What do you suppose Jesus thinks about a 1970's beer commercial being used so flippantly? Dunno.
At any rate, it feels like there are so many things to say of late that I never know where to start. So I'll begin with television commercials. Some day, someone will have to explain to me the point of election ads. If they are all hyperbole, and they are always put side by side (that is, pro-con-pro-con, etc.) then what do they achieve? One ad says McCain eats babies and the other says that Obama kills puppies, how does this affect my vote?
I also completely fail to understand the massive group of so-called "undecided voters" that everyone is scrambling for. How can anyone be undecided at this point? It's not like these candidates have so much in common that it comes down to splitting hairs here.
Obviously political ads are propagandist in nature, but I love that now the election is growing ever closer, that the rhetoric has been dialed up in really interesting ways. I saw a McCain ad this morning that opens with Obama's face on the screen, and he is made to look like he is much more dark-skinned than he is. He looks like Olivier did in Othello of the 1960's, painted in blackface with some kind of offensive tar paint. This shot of Obama could not make him look any more Other. Then there's a Shaffer ad that criticizes "Boulder Liberal Mark Udall," and makes use of the phrase "Boulder Liberal" about six times in the thirty seconds. The voice over spits out the phrase with marked acidity, as if the notion of a Boulder Liberal is so distasteful. I'd be offended if these kinds of tactics weren't so openly hilarious and appealed to anything more than the lowest common denominator.
But the same strategy has been applied lately to other types of ads. Have you noticed? There is a rash of new Microsoft commercials depicting "normal" people (one of whom looks decidedly like a fundamentalist Muslim with a smile - I'm just sayin'...) using the new Microsoft "Mojave" or something like that. After they've all glowed about how "tight" and "cool" the operating system is, it is revealed to these folks that what they're really using is Windows Vista. They are all surprised, of course, because they've been unwitting victims of the smear campaign against Vista. One guy says "I guess it's all about using it, huh?" as if to say that if you don't like Vista, it's because you're too stupid to use it properly. Love it. Really.
The other one is a play upon the "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" commercials in which all of the people are "PCs" and incredibly productive members of society. Take that, Apple.
I think my favorite one, however, is the series of ads that run during daytime television in which one mom offers another mom's child a soft drink and the receiving mom says, "don't you know that's full of high-fructose corn syrup? Don't you know what they say about it?" and the asking mom replies "What do they say about it? That it's made from corn and has the exact same calorie value as sugar?" The receiving mom is of course stumped on what to say next and concedes. The voice over says, "find out the facts." Laughable.
If I listened to TV, I would believe that Pizza Hut can make high-end restaurant quality pasta (with clever combinations like bacon cheese macaroni... guh), high-fructose corn syrup is good for me, all politicians are evil (which is probably more like truth), PCs are good things, Windows Vista doesn't suck, and that I need education advice from people who can barely speak their own native language.
I suppose it's no surprise, then, that even the church down the street has resorted to a beer ad to get people to think that Jesus is cool.
At any rate, it feels like there are so many things to say of late that I never know where to start. So I'll begin with television commercials. Some day, someone will have to explain to me the point of election ads. If they are all hyperbole, and they are always put side by side (that is, pro-con-pro-con, etc.) then what do they achieve? One ad says McCain eats babies and the other says that Obama kills puppies, how does this affect my vote?
I also completely fail to understand the massive group of so-called "undecided voters" that everyone is scrambling for. How can anyone be undecided at this point? It's not like these candidates have so much in common that it comes down to splitting hairs here.
Obviously political ads are propagandist in nature, but I love that now the election is growing ever closer, that the rhetoric has been dialed up in really interesting ways. I saw a McCain ad this morning that opens with Obama's face on the screen, and he is made to look like he is much more dark-skinned than he is. He looks like Olivier did in Othello of the 1960's, painted in blackface with some kind of offensive tar paint. This shot of Obama could not make him look any more Other. Then there's a Shaffer ad that criticizes "Boulder Liberal Mark Udall," and makes use of the phrase "Boulder Liberal" about six times in the thirty seconds. The voice over spits out the phrase with marked acidity, as if the notion of a Boulder Liberal is so distasteful. I'd be offended if these kinds of tactics weren't so openly hilarious and appealed to anything more than the lowest common denominator.
But the same strategy has been applied lately to other types of ads. Have you noticed? There is a rash of new Microsoft commercials depicting "normal" people (one of whom looks decidedly like a fundamentalist Muslim with a smile - I'm just sayin'...) using the new Microsoft "Mojave" or something like that. After they've all glowed about how "tight" and "cool" the operating system is, it is revealed to these folks that what they're really using is Windows Vista. They are all surprised, of course, because they've been unwitting victims of the smear campaign against Vista. One guy says "I guess it's all about using it, huh?" as if to say that if you don't like Vista, it's because you're too stupid to use it properly. Love it. Really.
The other one is a play upon the "I'm a Mac; I'm a PC" commercials in which all of the people are "PCs" and incredibly productive members of society. Take that, Apple.
I think my favorite one, however, is the series of ads that run during daytime television in which one mom offers another mom's child a soft drink and the receiving mom says, "don't you know that's full of high-fructose corn syrup? Don't you know what they say about it?" and the asking mom replies "What do they say about it? That it's made from corn and has the exact same calorie value as sugar?" The receiving mom is of course stumped on what to say next and concedes. The voice over says, "find out the facts." Laughable.
If I listened to TV, I would believe that Pizza Hut can make high-end restaurant quality pasta (with clever combinations like bacon cheese macaroni... guh), high-fructose corn syrup is good for me, all politicians are evil (which is probably more like truth), PCs are good things, Windows Vista doesn't suck, and that I need education advice from people who can barely speak their own native language.
I suppose it's no surprise, then, that even the church down the street has resorted to a beer ad to get people to think that Jesus is cool.
01 October 2008
Guh. Frustrating.
Few things can get to me like teaching frustrations. What's odd is that I can cope with pain-in-the-ass students, complaints, whining, and so on, but what I can't cope with adequately is when it feels like a class is failing and I don't know why or how to fix it.
My evening Lit class, which is a tiny group of fairly quiet folks, seems like it's always stalling out. We got going with a rough start because they didn't do the reading the first week and there was only so long I could slog through with the spoonfeeding. After that we had to change rooms and now we're in this large space that makes the quiet group seem even smaller and quieter. Perhaps I won a little bit when we took a field trip to Starbucks on about week 4 and had class on the patio, and it seemed to be even more of a success when we repeated the trip the following week. Then we needed to take a unit exam and I gave them a take home because we were so behind. It was due tonight, and I was looking forward to talking about poetry, but only half of them showed up and I knew I'd just have to repeat everything again next week so I let them go - less than a half hour after the start of class because I didn't know what else to do. We've missed so much class time, but sometimes it's just too hard to keep forcing my way through, and I feel like it's me who's failing. Logically, I know I am not - in fact, I daresay that they like me and the class time - but I don't know how to get this ship out of port. In contrast, I have another section of this class that I practically have to shove out the door at the end of class because they want to keep talking.
I'm open to ideas here. Really.
My evening Lit class, which is a tiny group of fairly quiet folks, seems like it's always stalling out. We got going with a rough start because they didn't do the reading the first week and there was only so long I could slog through with the spoonfeeding. After that we had to change rooms and now we're in this large space that makes the quiet group seem even smaller and quieter. Perhaps I won a little bit when we took a field trip to Starbucks on about week 4 and had class on the patio, and it seemed to be even more of a success when we repeated the trip the following week. Then we needed to take a unit exam and I gave them a take home because we were so behind. It was due tonight, and I was looking forward to talking about poetry, but only half of them showed up and I knew I'd just have to repeat everything again next week so I let them go - less than a half hour after the start of class because I didn't know what else to do. We've missed so much class time, but sometimes it's just too hard to keep forcing my way through, and I feel like it's me who's failing. Logically, I know I am not - in fact, I daresay that they like me and the class time - but I don't know how to get this ship out of port. In contrast, I have another section of this class that I practically have to shove out the door at the end of class because they want to keep talking.
I'm open to ideas here. Really.
What is not hilarious about this?
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Do we need more evidence that the type of folks who hate people blindly are idiots?
Give your feet a chance, they'll do all the thinking
Some days I am so restless I want to just start walking in any direction and keep on going. It's not like I'm depressed or that I dislike my life, I just get bored. I want adventure and novelty. New things are so frightening that it always makes coming home again that much more comforting.
But it's okay. Travels are afoot. Next week I get to go all the way to Reno for a conference. Aren't you jealous? I don't care much for the whole cheesy gambling town thing - save the kitsch factor - and I have about a 24-hour threshold for it. Lucky for me, that's just about how long I'll be there. I opted not to participated in said conference except to chair a panel, which basically means that I'm the one who introduces people and moderates any conversation following. This will be my first conference for which I won't lose sleep or spend the entire time there in my room, frantically trying to finish my presentation before I go on, and hoping that the hotel has some means by which I can print it out in time.
In November, I get to head to San Antonio to see Laura! I've never been there and even though it's Texas, I dig seeing new places and comforting faces. I'm happy for Laura that she made a positive move for herself and her son and got out of a bad situation here, but I miss her terribly. DU feels so perfectly dull as if a layer of color has been removed from all things there.
The one thing I have to look forward to in the coming weeks, however, is my trip to the UK. I am giddy as a school girl about this, even though I cannot afford it, shouldn't put it on credit as I've done, and feel tremendously guilty about leaving Jamison and Sami behind again. Perhaps not "tremendously." I have been waiting my whole life to have the freedom to go when and where I choose and I'm not going to talk myself out of it. Sami's a kid and hasn't earned the right to travel abroad yet (unless I had much more money than I do currently), and I do feel bad leaving Jamison behind - mostly because I'd love to share these experiences with him - but I also can't change the fact that he can't go.
This year I'm visiting Scotland and it's just about all I can do to concentrate on anything else during the day. I am sure I'll eventually have to pay dearly for skipping so much work and family time, but it will also be worth it. At the end of things, I'd rather have fond memories and close relationships than things and money. I don't care if that's responsible or not.
But it's okay. Travels are afoot. Next week I get to go all the way to Reno for a conference. Aren't you jealous? I don't care much for the whole cheesy gambling town thing - save the kitsch factor - and I have about a 24-hour threshold for it. Lucky for me, that's just about how long I'll be there. I opted not to participated in said conference except to chair a panel, which basically means that I'm the one who introduces people and moderates any conversation following. This will be my first conference for which I won't lose sleep or spend the entire time there in my room, frantically trying to finish my presentation before I go on, and hoping that the hotel has some means by which I can print it out in time.
In November, I get to head to San Antonio to see Laura! I've never been there and even though it's Texas, I dig seeing new places and comforting faces. I'm happy for Laura that she made a positive move for herself and her son and got out of a bad situation here, but I miss her terribly. DU feels so perfectly dull as if a layer of color has been removed from all things there.
The one thing I have to look forward to in the coming weeks, however, is my trip to the UK. I am giddy as a school girl about this, even though I cannot afford it, shouldn't put it on credit as I've done, and feel tremendously guilty about leaving Jamison and Sami behind again. Perhaps not "tremendously." I have been waiting my whole life to have the freedom to go when and where I choose and I'm not going to talk myself out of it. Sami's a kid and hasn't earned the right to travel abroad yet (unless I had much more money than I do currently), and I do feel bad leaving Jamison behind - mostly because I'd love to share these experiences with him - but I also can't change the fact that he can't go.
This year I'm visiting Scotland and it's just about all I can do to concentrate on anything else during the day. I am sure I'll eventually have to pay dearly for skipping so much work and family time, but it will also be worth it. At the end of things, I'd rather have fond memories and close relationships than things and money. I don't care if that's responsible or not.
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