thoughts that normal people do not entertain

Why can't there be a laundromat in the library?

a circuitous route

In an effort to prevent the kind of dinner “conversation” that sometimes occurs between people who have lived together for a while, my friend Abby gave me this beautiful box of questions. I like to think of it as CPR for the life of the mind--there’s simply no recovering from “Oh, you went out for lunch today? What did you order?” Yes. It can get that bad.

Anyway, one evening Russell and I sat down to a nice dinner at the end of a particularly long week, and I pulled a card that read: “Do you live more in the past, the present, or the future.”

Go ahead, think about it for a minute.

***

I’m not sure if it’s the result of my (somewhat) Catholic upbringing, or my habit of comparing myself to my near-perfect parents, or some sort of hardwired desire for perfection and closure, but I spend a lot of time reflecting on what I could/should have done differently. To say I’m utterly steeped in regret sounds so melancholy, and I don’t always feel sad when I look back, but I do regret not doing one thing or another almost every day. Even when my “mistakes” turn out to be the best decisions I’ve ever made, I still feel a lot of disappointment in myself. For example, failing a class (MBI 464—Human Viruses) in college resulted in me being a double-major in Microbiology and English because I had to stay an extra year to retake the class. I’m now working on my PhD in English! I should be thankful I blew off my first exam in order to finish Middlemarch. Yet, I still think to myself, “I wish I’d actually studied in college. Who knows where I would be right now.”

That’s some seriously flawed thinking right there. And it’s not just school, it’s everything. Relationships with friends, family, acquaintances, writing I've done, papers I've submitted, things I’ve said, purchases I’ve made (I’m currently regretting our couch), you get the point. If there was a do-over button, I’d have worn through the enamel on that baby!

***

Russell, on the other hand, lives in the future. He’s a forward-thinking, progressive sort of fellow. He embraces the possibility and change that the future brings. Occasionally I like to go there with him. We talk about what will happen when I finish my dissertation, when we move out of Cincinnati, when we have our own house, when this crazy summer, fall, winter, what have you is over. In these moments, I’m tempted not only by the promise of this, and this, and this, but also by the lure of the fresh start, the clean slate, the new horizon. An exercise in escapism, to be sure, but when I daydream about planting a small vegetable garden and watching my zinnias bloom, it doesn’t feel all that wrong.

I believe that this perspective is one that we (as Americans) are supposed to have, the one we’re encouraged to cultivate in ourselves. We push ourselves first through junior high and high school for the promise of college and, once there, we push ourselves through with visions of “the dream job,” which allows us to look forward to the serious relationship, the house, the kids/pets, the cars, upgrade, upgrade, upgrade…. All in the name of progress, right?

***

Not this past New Year’s, but the year before that, I made a resolution to “Be Here Now,” to appreciate the moment rather than looking to the past or the future. Not an easy task, I assure you. At the party that year, my proposal was met with both skepticism and seriousness. A friend loaned me a book—half-joking, half-seriously—to give me some insight. Published in 1971, Ram Dass’s tome on spirituality and, well, acid, was an interesting read, but it was a bit out there for my 2006 sensibilities. I won’t discount the message (I think the reviewer’s comments on the Amazon page speak to the profound changes that come from rethinking our perspectives on time), but I guess I was looking for something more practical, less drug-fueled. You know, something to help me focus when I’m gearing up for a self-imposed guilt trip about not reading something sooner, or when, on Monday, I’m already thinking about how great the following weekend will be.

***

Lately, I’ve found a bit of a mental loophole to help me out, but only with my writing and my school work. (No matter how hard I try, and believe me, I do try, I can’t “be here now” when I’m stuck behind someone who doesn’t understand the whole “right on red” thing.) Whenever I get frustrated with the dissertation process, the writing, the reading, the note-taking, the synthesis, the lack of progress, I try to envision how my future self would feel about my current attitude. Said another way, I’m trying to pre-empt some of the regret I might feel when looking back on this period of my life. Perhaps an example will clarify…

Rather than look back on this summer and think, “Why didn’t I savor those long lovely days at the library where I had peace and quiet, a huge table all to myself, and all the AC I could handle?” I consciously try to appreciate my surroundings as they are right now. Rather than reflect on Ch. 4 as messy and disorganized, beating myself up for not having it perfect the first time around, I try to be aware of the dynamic, pliable qualities of my writing, now, before it hardens into a final draft.

***

I know my solution is shaky, in part because I’m using the future to reconfigure my past, neither of which really counts as “now.” Furthermore, it seems problematic to depend on something that doesn’t exist (the future) to avoid a past (which also doesn’t exist yet) that only stands in for the present. And maybe you’re thinking: Jen, you’re missing the point, you should be focused on the present, the right now!!! But what if it works? Maybe it’s a temporary (and probably metaphysically flawed) fix, but it’s a fix, and I’ll take it.

***

Two quick things before I end this post: first, I made the same resolution this year (2007) and it’s just as difficult the second time around; and second, I never, ever have any trouble “being here now” when I’m knitting. None at all. I should probably take that as a sign…

lighten up, francis

My apologies for yesterday's angry post--not all days spent writing are sunshiny and inspired, but that doesn't mean I need to spew negativity, either. Who knows how many dreams lay dashed as the result of my rant on Romantic Writing. Oh, the horror.

After posting, I paced around my apartment a bit, watched my neighbor mow his law, watered my plants and then it hit me--I'd forgotten Matt Groening's excellent advice via his "Life in Hell" comic strip. All I needed to do was leave off the writing and pick up a book. Which I did. A real page turner, despite the dry title.

That, and I needed to chill out. Sometimes I forget that, too.

taking the turn to negative town

My students and I are blogging in our English 225 class. The assignment for tomorrow asks us to post an entry describing our feelings about writing in general, about drafting the final long paper (a position paper on an issue of personal significance or a manifesto—a great writing exercise despite recent events), about writing online, or about any old thing they wish. Right now, I’d rather write about my feelings for salt (love it!) or people who drive slowly in the left lane (hate ‘em), but I’ll try to tackle the writing thing.

The other day, I had a conversation with one of my colleagues about the romanticizing of writing that occurs in upper-level writing classes. I’m probably as guilty of this practice as the next person—I think a lot of people who enter a PhD program in Composition and Rhetoric believe they have something important to say, that they need to write to live fully, that they possess a special passion for writing, that they write to understand themselves and their world, blah, blah blah. I’d be lying if I said I never felt (or, perhaps more truthfully, wanted to feel) those things. However, there are other, less beautiful reasons I write. And, sadly, on this day, the ugly reasons are overshadowing the romantic ones.

Case in point: If I had to pinpoint my feelings about writing at this moment, I’d identify “obligation” as the strongest. If I don’t finish my stupid dissertation, then I don’t get my PhD. And if I don’t get my PhD, I can’t teach. And, since I’m not fit to do anything else at this point, write I must. Oy.

My colleague? He told me he writes because he’s good at it. That’s it. He chose his career because he’s a good writer. By that logic, I should be putting something in alphabetical order right now (or some other organizational task). Too bad I can’t get my PhD in California Closets and ordering Crayola crayons by color.

Shoulda posted about salt.

(re)discovering beets and asparagus, and other tales of taste

So, you know how there's that idea that your taste buds change every twelve years? That, for example, if you hated Brussels sprouts as a kid, you might want to try them again as an adult because you just might love them? Well, after this weekend, I'm wondering if the same can be said about movies.

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2007 how I felt about B-movies, horror movies, and the like, I would have explained that I don't like violence, thank you, and told the story of how I had to stop watching Casino to throw up. Literally. (I know, I know, Casino is neither B nor horror, but to me it was all so much blood and guts and therefore unwatchable.)

However, two recent viewing experiences have made me wonder whether my tastes have expanded. First, I watched The Descent with friends and, after getting over my inital squeamishness, decided it was one of the most fun movies I'd seen in a long time. I mean, it was creepy and scary, and I'll probably never willingly enter a cave again, but it was also hilariously funny and full of parodies of the horror movie genre. I enjoyed thinking about how and why the director did what he did.

Then, yesterday, Russell talked me into seeing Grindhouse, the new double-feature by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. It was amazing. Seriously. The most fun I've had at a movie for a long, long time. As soon as it was over, I announced to Russell that we'd be seeing it again. As we walked home, I chattered about how much I loved the first movie, "Planet Terror," and how funny the trailers were, and didn't he love the second movie ("Death Proof"), and wasn't Rose McGowan awesome, and what about Marley Shelton and...

So, yeah, pass the Brussels sprouts!

a day of reckoning

A week or so ago, a student asked me why I never wear anything I’ve knit. I didn’t hesitate when I told her that the onslaught of babies has prevented me from being able to finish anything for myself. What I failed to mention is the fact that, for the time being, my knitting for babies is all done.



The truth? Well, that’s a bit harder to explain.

It’s like this: I have been busy writing, teaching, reading, knitting stuff for others, but I’ve also been maybe a bit distracted by the sheer number of projects I have going on at once. Said another way, I have too many projects on needles and I tend to work on all of them a little at a time and I continue finding new projects to start and I have this thing where I get sad when something is over and I’m a process knitter and…

So the truth looks a little more like this:


or this:


or this:


or even this:

And, sadly, there's more where that came from.

So, there it is. The real reason I’m not wearing anything I knit.

will i ever learn?

Painfully aware of the rapid disappearance of whatever modicum of cool I ever had, I tend to imagine my students on some cutting edge that I’ve long since renounced as remote and unreachable. I can’t understand their IM speak, their video games are too fast and confusing for me (I miss Punch Out, Tetris, Super Mario Brothers), and, as I’ve already confessed, I can’t keep up with their music.**

In no place is this feeling of being “out of it” more persistent than the realm of technology. Seriously, I sent my first email when I was in college, in 1997, and even then I was late to the game. I don’t own an iPod, use Tivo, understand HTML, download music, use Facebook, or have a Blackberry. I only began blogging last year for a class.

My students, on the other hand, have probably been blogging since they were in knee pants, posting their thoughtful musings, video clips, graphics, and photos on their own websites (built from scratch, of course).

Or so I thought.

Like last year, I’m teaching a composition class wherein I ask my students to create their own blog in order to write for a broad public audience. And as this sequence of assignments approached, I had some serious qualms about asking my students to blog. I worried that (certainly already having blogs of their own) they might not find anything of use in this process, that they might resent having to cover old ground.

Turns out, as a class, they have relatively little experience with blogs. Really, almost none. So much for my stupid assumption.

At first I was elated. I find blogging such an interesting writing exercise and I like the way it forces me to rethink composition (and rhetoric) as systems of communication. But now, after reading some of their responses to blogs they found for class, I have a new fear:

Is it ethical for me to ask my students to publish their writing on the internet?

Many of them wrote about stalkers, privacy issues, disclosing their identities, the consequences of blogging on their future careers, etc., etc., etc.

In my mind, I see a continuum of safe to risky blogging techniques, and I’ve been trying to highlight the different strategies bloggers use to attract and/or repel particular audiences (to say nothing of practical advice about how to keep one’s identity shielded.) But I’m now wondering about the ethics of asking a student to publish online as part of a grade. Something to consider…


**Last year, after admitting that I still loved the Beastie Boys, a student laughed at me and stated with disdain, “they’re so old.”

the tipping point

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m writing a dissertation. Most of my posts on that subject have been laments concerning my ineptitude and frustration, and my failure to post more often than not stems from that same ineptitude. (When writer’s block strikes, no genre is safe from its hamperings.) January and February were especially trying in that regard. At one point I almost posted some pictures of my hand-written drafts, many of which included more strikethroughs, scribblings, and half-finished sentences than readable prose. Depressing, to say the least.

Anyway, during this time, my advisor continued to encourage me, regaling me with tales of “the tipping point,” a mysterious moment in time wherein I would suddenly begin to tilt toward completion, wherein inertia would take over and the draft would begin writing itself. Naturally cynical, I doubted that I’d ever reach such a point, but secretly I hoped it would happen.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been drafting chapter three. I noticed that the writing was feeling easier, more fluid, more focused, but I didn’t give it much thought. Like anyone on a streak, I felt superstitious—I tried not to break my routine and I worried about hubris and angry gods. But I kept at it. (Note: I’m a little concerned as I type this post, but I’m hoping a small sacrifice will show my humility and reverence… .)

I finished the draft (due last Wednesday for a “works-in-progress” talk) and I began drafting summaries of my earlier chapters to help my readers understand where this chapter fit into the whole. And, seriously now, all of a sudden it was clear. I could see my whole project and how it might look upon completion. I even discovered what I had been trying to say in my first two chapters and began making notes for revision. Ah! The joys of the tipping point!

In retrospect, I should have known. My earlier metaphors hint at such moments—the peanut butter from the jar, the plane lifting off—but I figured that it would be different for such a big project. And, truth be told, as a writing teacher, I suppose I should have a little faith in the process I teach. I tell my students all the time to keep writing, that drafting is a way to learn what it is you want to say, that writing takes diligence and practice, that we all have difficult moments in our efforts to share our ideas.

Needless to say, I felt compelled to post, not only to share my progress and my thoughts but also to create a record of this moment. I know for a fact that I’ll encounter writer’s block again and again, and that there will be future writing projects begun without a good sense of purpose and focus. But this post will (hopefully) remind me to trust myself and the process.

I have lots more work to do—I still have another big chapter and an afterword to draft before I begin the work of deep revision—but I’m tilting forward and I can see the end, however distant it may seem from right here.

baby birds

For the record, I did have notes for the entry I promised. I had filled the blank side of an envelope with musings on the process of reading student papers and, as of Tuesday night, it sat ready on our dining room table. Now, Thursday, I cannot for the life of me locate the envelope. I’ve pillaged all my notes, my various folders, even my “take to school stuff,” which I would never mix with my “extracurricular writing stuff.”

The envelope is nowhere to be found…

I remember that I was feeling very tender when I decided to write again. I was overcome by the very great honor that comes with reading another person’s writing. When another human being trusts you with his or her work (and yes, I would concede to maternal metaphors here, regardless of gender), it’s absolutely an honor. And that honor necessarily brings responsibility.

That’s about all I can recall now. Allowing for my typical response to such musings, I feel confident alluding to any number of the following accompanying tangents: “How can teachers NOT spend a lot of time on student papers?”; “I’m really doing a good job.”; “Will they even read my comments?”; “Wow. I wonder if I’m the first person to see this thought on paper. How should I direct the writing?”

It’s that last thought that always keeps me coming back, that makes me feel as if I have some role in my students’ writing/learning process. I return to the rhetorical, an analysis that forever asks, forever analyzes, forever angles for just the right turn of phrase, forever weighs in on the dialectical adventure that is presenting a version of self…okay, at least for this paper; it’s an autobiography…

Anyway, my students present a sliver of themselves, and I’m to analyze it? What is that?

That’s teaching. And of all the skills I might bring to the analysis of an essay, or an advertisement, or a design, or an autobiography, I’m so glad I have this tenderness. I don’t care if it makes me soft. These are lives here; these are careful, calculated expressions of self.

(Please read that last line with just a hint of Donald Sutherland as English Professor. Just a hint, mind you.)

It’s important to be gentle. It’s also important to teach.

Can rhetoric be tender? Was Aristotle ever tender? What about I. A. Richards? Burke? Charles Darwin?

And as long as I'm asking--who taught them?

It's hard to wield such a weapon effectively yet still show others the "right" ways to use it.

***
So, I think that’s as far as I would have gone. I think that’s probably the point of stasis for me--for that musing, but also in general. If anyone out there has any theories about teaching, I’d be happy to think them through.

***
I like my students this year. I’m only now getting to know them, but I feel better about the class every day. I only hope they like each other. They seem noisy enough before I get there. Perhaps I’ll be late tomorrow. Maybe they need some time without me…

february is the new january

I started writing again today, (funny how I continue to simply stop writing, as if nothing really depends on it) and now here I sit. I had to log in again it'd been so much time since I'd posted. Unlike my other writing (engagements, shall we say?), nothing whatsoever depends on me posting to this blog.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I've felt like a slacker. I don't necessarily think that everyone is reading, but the prospect of letting anyone down is not one I savor.

So, I'll write again tomorrow, about teaching and writing, even.

In the meantime, it snowed like all get out here today. I am elated!

intersections

My friend Shannon gave me Debbie Stoller's Stitch and Bitch 2007 desk calendar.

Reasons for its exceptionality as a gift, Exhibit A:

The page for Saturday, Jan. 6 and Sunday, Jan. 7 reads:

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work"--Aristotle.

I'm treating the connections between knitting, writing, and rhetoric (three of my favorite things) as a good omen for this year. And the idea that I might take pleasure in all the work I'm doing seems especially important as I move forward into the later chapters of my dissertation (and, sigh, the deep revisions that will inevitably follow).

all right. i give up.

Before I begin, I need to point out that today's date is January 3rd, and I live in Ohio.

During November and December, I'd been noticing, not without some alarm, that formerly mulched-over gardens and flower beds had been sprouting little green nubs. The weather has been unseasonably warm this year, and though I worried a little to myself about the future of said nubs I figured a good freeze would stop them in their tracks before they sustained too much damage.

Over the past week or two, these nubs have grown: the white-green leaves of irises have begun emerging in long strips from their gray-brown roots, the dark shoots of snowdrops and crocuses have now extended inches above the ground, and the future leaves of daffodils are also on the rise. I worried a little more, and then decided that these early flowers might suffer but that spring would not be entirely lost when "real winter" arrives.

On my way home from the library today I saw this:


(Sorry for the crappy photo--I used my phone.)

I know that the current administration doesn't give a fig for my opinion on global warming (they don't believe the science, why would they believe me?) but I'm beyond worry now. Where are my seasons? Where is the snow? Why is this (admittedly lovely) flowering bush flowering in January???

caution: falling IQ

My faith in science tells me there must be a reason for the sudden, precipitous drop in my IQ when I’m around The Chair of an English Department. A mathematical formula or a scientific theory to explain it. An inverse proportion or hypothesis to account for my inability to think or speak when a Chair is within earshot.

I know the scientific method begins with an observation of phenomena. Allow me to present

Phenomenon 1: While working on my MA, I attend a faculty/staff/TA back-to-school get together. I enter a conversation wherein The Chair and two of my professors are discussing a recent news piece detailing the ignorance of “today’s youth.” Seems said youth can’t name the three branches of government. Even before the three look to me for proof that I’m not that stupid, I start to sweat. Uh, judicial, legislative... ….. …..

And then a wave of shame.

The Chair gives a queasy half smile before helping me.

“Executive.”

I depart in search of wine and an instrument for self-flagellation.

***

Phenomenon 2: Yesterday. I’m sitting in a meeting with three of my professors and The Chair. We’re debating whether or not a prospective job candidate is really interested in a position at my school. Is this person “flirting” with us to increase her/his chances for tenure somewhere else? Or is she/he genuinely interested in making a career move? I’m optimistic. I state my reasons, ending with “Besides, ___________ (the town where she/he is currently teaching) smells bad.”

As the words we’re leaving my mouth, I realized my mistake. Too late, though—exposed again.

I suppose it would be unseemly for me to show up to my own job interviews with a sock in my mouth; however, the thought has crossed my mind.

clichés and bad writing metaphors--thank you, Donald Rumsfeld

My green Pilot V-ball Extra Fine pen ran out a few days ago. I made a mental note to swing by the UC bookstore when I was next on campus and I threw the pen away. No big deal, I thought; I still have a blue one in my bag.

Every writer has her favorite tools. I’m partial to the V-ball with the round top (not the flat), the old-style Bic “banana” (as Russell calls them; yellow, hexagonal barrel), Alvin Draft/Matic pencils (in 0.3 and 0.5), fine-line legal pads, and Magic Rub erasers (although the Staedtler Mars is growing on me).

(I don’t care if you all think I’m a nerd. You know you have your favorites, too.)

So, I walk to the bookstore today and not only have they seriously reduced their inventory, my V-balls are nowhere in sight. Instead, there are some new-fangled retractable rollerball pens and some crappy Uniballs.

I leave.

The temperature this morning was 12° but I decide to try DuBois bookstore off campus.

Strike two.

Lance’s Art Supplies was my last hope, but it wasn’t open until 9:00, so I stopped at a local coffee shop to fortify myself with a latté.

Lance's had a great selection, but no round top V-balls. Oh! The ensuing let-down…

By then, I had wasted 45 minutes of reading time, so I resigned myself to failure and purchased a green “flat top” V-ball and two of the new-fangled retractables and headed out the door for the library. I assuaged my sorrow with thoughts of trying Miami’s bookstore on Monday. But then, as I was walking, I wondered if perhaps I might need to give up on the V-ball and give the new pens a try. (My fear, of course, is in the possibility that the V-balls have been discontinued.) I thought to myself, “Well, you go to war with the army you have.”

Do I feel worse about using a terrible cliché or that it’s gotten to the point where I’m comparing writing to the (now universally determined “unwinnable”) Iraq war?

Don’t answer that.

not on topic

Seriously. If E. M. Forester wrote today, it'd be a different sort of plea.

F*%#ing connect. And he'd most certainly be talking about some sort of technology.

But the message would be the same.

It doesn't make anything better, it just makes us sit here in front of these boxes. I can't even burn a disc without having to broker a deal with IPod or whoever. And which browser will work today? Ah, sweet anticipation......

Too much "ether" for me.

I miss tapes.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program; my password just went through.

pin oaks and finals week: or, what’s left after this weekend

As an Ohioan, I find it difficult to keep the topic of weather out of my daily conversations. I once read a book on language and dialect that explained how to approach and converse with a mid-westerner-—first you discuss by what route you arrived at your destination, then you discuss the weather, then you talk about what route you’ll use to get home. The weather part of the conversation lasts the longest and covers every possible subject, including farming, flooding, records made and broken, its effect on sports, leaf color, next spring’s bulbs, holiday traveling plans, traveling plans in general…you get the point. It was only a matter of time before the weather crept into this blog…

The weather in Ohio is known for its rapid changes. Sunny summer skies can quickly give way to powerful thunderstorms as the purples, blues, and grays roll in; cool spring mornings often belie a scorching afternoon; a snowstorm can leave behind several inches that disappear by the day’s end. We layer here. We must.

This weekend began unseasonably warm. Thursday of last week brought us 70 degree temperatures which continued until Friday evening. As I drove home on Friday afternoon, I rolled my windows down and watched the autumn colors whiz by. Although some of the trees had lost their leaves (ginkos, ashes, birches fall early), the majority of the trees still had leaves. The sycamores, maples, and oaks made up so many bright splashes of color out my window.

But then the wind kicked up, the temperature fell about 25 degrees overnight, and Saturday looked and felt like November should. We woke to a rain that lingered all day. Now, on Monday, the trees are mostly empty and the air has that cold, damp feel that permeates clothing and chills all the way through. Looking out the window of the library today, I see brown branches and gray skies. An occasional evergreen or pin oak brings a little opacity, but for the most part the view is buildings through branches.

The mood on campus today seems gray as well. I did not hear much friendly chatter as I walked to the library this morning. Granted, it’s Monday, and the beginning of the week lacks the energy of the end, but I saw more bent heads that I did eyes, more hands cupping lattes than carrying pop. And I didn’t see a single student talking on a cell phone. (Sadly, the last observation is the most telling…)

As I neared the library, one of the bent heads looked up. The young man, probably a first-year student, looked both tired and shell-shocked. His mouth hung open a bit and his gaze looked through me, past me, to the library door. I looked down and saw his calculus book, stuffed fat with notebook paper, its binding straining from the added thickness. And then it dawned on me. UC is on quarters, so finals week is rapidly approaching.

It has been easy to coast through this semester without attending to the administrative and academic—midterms went by unnoticed, as did fall “break,” Parents’ weekend, Greek week, and all of the other markers of time on a college campus. This morning was a bit of a wake up call, I suppose. Soon the semester will end and I’ll have to head back to the classroom. I’m not dreading it (although I did have a teaching nightmare last night—forgot my syllabus on the first day, then couldn’t find my new office to retrieve it before class ended) but I wonder about my ability to keep writing with the hassle of lesson plans and assignments to read and grade.

Time to get serious. That calculus boy and I have a lot of ground to cover before this semester ends…

14,000 stitches of love and hope*

A certain amount of acceptance comes with knitting a gift for a baby or a child. After all, babies and children grow, often very quickly, and soon enough the gift doesn’t fit anymore. And for the knitter, that can make the whole enterprise feel a little futile…a little empty, I guess. Couple that with the nagging suspicion that the child’s parents (usually non-knitters) might not fully appreciate the cost, time, and effort that goes into the gift, or, worse, that the parents might not even dress the child in said gift at all, and it’s a wonder any knitter would set herself or himself up for such heartbreak.

But in my experience, another feeling supersedes these others and makes it not only possible but in fact downright pleasurable to knit for a child. As I sit here typing, I’m struggling to find the right sentiment to describe it—a mix of love and hope and possibility, I suppose.

Some of the women in my knitting group work on what they call “prayer shawls.” Apparently they work the shawl in a three-part knit stitch that somehow evokes the trinity. I’m not exactly sure how the stitch works, but I do know that as they knit, they pray for the recipients.

I’m not the most religious person on the planet, so when it comes to prayer, I often find myself sending good vibes or “wishing” a person well—hoping for peace and happiness rather than asking a God to bring it.

Last weekend, I attended my niece’s christening as her godmother. I wanted to do something special for her, so I decided to knit her a cute little sweater (the Child’s Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.) As I was knitting, I found myself thinking about my niece—envisioning her as a baby, a toddler, a child, and a young girl. I imagined her wearing the sweater while playing outside, running (in that funny way that toddlers do) after her dog, making messes for her parents to clean up, going to pre-school, etc., etc. I imagined her laughing and smiling, reading with her parents, learning about the world around her, growing up. And soon enough, the sweater was done.

Here are two pictures of the sweater. As you can see, it’s not quite finished. I have to stitch up the seams under the arms:



This close-up shows the placket. I still need to block the sweater and sew on the buttons:



As goofy as it sounds, I suppose what I was doing could be considered praying. As I was knitting I was meditating, hopefully, purposefully, on my niece and her childhood, creating positive experiences for her in my mind, wishing her happy and healthy. At one point, I realized that I didn’t care at all how long it took me to finish the sweater, or how I’d feel if her parents didn’t use it, I only wanted to express my love and hope for her.

I’m not sure this post accurately conveys the warm feeling that I felt, or how good it felt to feel it. I guess I’m not a person who feels at peace very often—I tend to be more cynical, more apt to focus on the worth of a particular task or outcome rather than the inherent pleasure of performing the task itself. This experience was different and I’m glad.

*The stitch tally is obviously an approximation, but I think it's pretty close...

daunting

That’s what chapter two is feeling like lately. Daunting. I’m not so enamored of the feeling that comes with the word, but I do appreciate the suitability of the word itself. For me, “daunting” brings to mind something bent—-a person weighed down with possibility perhaps, or someone brought down by the enormity of a task.

As evidenced by earlier posts, I’m a dork, so it should not surprise anyone that I went to the American Heritage Dictionary to investigate the etymology of the word after I finished the above statement. Like all word snobs, I do prefer the heft of the OED for purely aesthetic look-ups, but the AHD has the Indo-European root words listed in the back, and there’s nothing more satisfying than following a word back to its source. (My peers in dorkitude may especially enjoy terms “yard,” “angst,” or “epiphany,” all of which offer interesting connections through their IE root.)

Anyway, when I looked up “daunt,” I came up with this:
daunt (dônt, dänt)
To abate the courage of; discourage. See synonyms at dismay.

And it’s etymology:
Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin domitre, frequentative of domre, to tame. See dem- in Appendix I.

Of course, I went straight to Appendix I, where I found

dem-
DEFINITION: To constrain, force, especially to break in (horses). Oldest form *dem2-. 1. Suffixed o-grade form *dom()-o-. tame, from Old English tam, domesticated, from Germanic *tamaz. 2. O-grade form *dom-. daunt; indomitable, from Latin domre, to tame, subdue. 3. Zero-grade form *d-. adamant, diamond, from Greek damn, to tame (> adams, unconquerable, from *-d-nt-). (Pokorny (dem-) 199.)

Interesting, eh? I mean, I certainly did not know the “break in (horses)” or "tame, subdue" origin of the word, so how I did I come up with my feelings of “bent” or “brought down by”? I’m not arguing that my understanding of the word was right on, but when I thought of “bent,” I was definitely trying to articulate the idea of a person hunched over under a weight. Without sounding overly profound, it’s pretty amazing that a word can still (kind of, sort of) carry its original meaning. Language is coooooooool.

Okay, enough philosophizing for today. How about a visual to accompany the term “daunting”?

Here you go…

money and a room of one's own notwithstanding

A good view makes all the difference in the world.

Today I'm feeling a little blue. I don't feel like writing. I also don't feel like reading anything related to my dissertation. One can only read so many essays and books on involuntary sterilization without starting to feel a little, um, disenchanted with the human race.

However, it feels a little irresponsible to wallow in self-pity when one has not one but two places to write with such beautiful views. The pictures can't do justice to the autumn leaves and the bustling street below, but they do hint at the "treehouse" feel of our apartment. We're on the second floor: in the trees, but not so high that moving will be a chore.

This first shot shows the view out my office window. As I face my computer, the window is at my left, about a foot and a half away. The bottom of the window sill is shoulder-high, so I can look out, but the folks on the ground can’t see much more of me than the top of my head (perfect for early morning writing in a robe and slippers). We live on a corner one block from the main street in Clifton. There is lots of foot traffic here as people walk up to Ludlow.



The second shot looks up from my seat at our “dining room” table. We took the screens off the windows to improve the view. It means more moths (which I’m constantly ushering out of the apartment so that they don’t get into my wool) but I think it’s worth it to have the old windows fully visible. Even when the ash outside doesn’t have leaves, the view is still gorgeous. I love tree branches against a winter sky.



So, with that, I’ll head back to work. I wonder if Virginia Woolf would have felt better had she left the stuffy library and found a room with a view instead.

Is an apology in order?

I read two blogs religiously: the Yarn Harlot’s blog about knitting and Heather Armstrong’s blog dooce.com. I check in on several others, but not with the same frequency. It is these two writers upon whom I depend for my inspirational “fix”. If a day goes by without a post, I find myself feeling a little, well, irritated. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare these blogs to my need for coffee, but I will say that when there’s nothing new to read, I feel a corresponding dissatisfaction and disappointment.

To compare my own blog to either of these two blogs would be ludicrous, and I understand that completely. However, I have been wondering if there’s a person or two out there who has visited my blog lately and been disappointed that I haven’t posted for a (long) while. Ever since my friend Kell linked me to her own blog, I’ve been feeling guilty about my utter lack of output in the blog department.

There are several reasons for this lack (had a conference paper to write, recent struggle with “writer’s block” leaves me a little insecure about posting, Ch. 2 of my dissertation is due in two weeks) but I think one reason in particular has been especially prohibitive: my self-imposed range of topics.

I originally chose the limits of knitting and writing to avoid the kind of emo-blogging that serves no purpose to the reader. I mean, yeah, some of my posts about writing are a little personal and introspective, but I want to believe that someone out there might have the same hurdles and, in reading my post, would think, “So, I’m not the only one who can’t write because I’ve been reading too much. How refreshing!” I thought having a couple of fairly “light” topics would give me some boundaries.

What I hadn’t considered was the problem of timeliness; that is, lately, my knitting seems redundant (more freakin’ baby hats!) and my writing feels equally dull. The topics that do enter my mind might be considered outside the lines, so to speak. Couple that with a recent discovery that “googling” my own name brings my blog up first, and I’m now feeling like I can only allude to issues of writing that might be worth thinking/writing through. (A recent job search meeting prompted me to determine what might be “out there” in cyberspace—what might be public to potential employers—and how that might reflect on me as a job candidate. I mean, sure, I’m vain enough to google myself for no reason at all, but this time it had a purpose.) As a result, posts like my most recent that allude to issues of jealousy and writing and competition and “how far along are you on your dissertation?” and other graduate student insecurities can only exist in the margins. Right?

Maybe not. I’m not sure. I tell myself that any university hiring team who would read my blog and not hire me because of something I wrote would not be the sort of people I’d want to work with anyway. But don’t we all tell ourselves that? Even as I wrote that line, I felt that I might be lying a little. If, say, the University of Cool Midwestern City cut me from their list for this blog, I’d cry. And then I’d hate myself. And then I’d cry some more.

So, still working through those issues, I guess… But in the meantime, I’ll try to post with more regularity and I’ll continue to (try to) be up front about the personal and political of blogging as I encounter it.