Friday, March 31, 2006

Not so bright

I spend a lot of time thinking about how retarded I am. Retarded acts today: using the word retarded, paying $24 for lunch yesterday because I was at Mama's Southern Plantation and the owners were black and I wanted to be cool and helpful so I just paid whatever instead of asking, how might lunch possibly cost this much? though I did order ala carte and strangley. Of course, now I'm sure they think I'm the biggest idiot in the world. Which I may well be. So I'm not only retarded but racist. I also convinced myself that the lunch wasn't very fattening because I didn't have any sides with my two pieces of fried chicken and 3 ribs. I also put my coffee cup within Zo's reach and she spilled it all over herself (it wasn't very hot, but still). I made two separate lunch appointments for the same day. I went to Ace Hardward to buy stem-to-faucet caps and a 1/2 inch to 5/8th transducer and came home with neither. I tossed Zo's carrot babyfood spoon in the sink and it splashed carrot juice all over the bathroom walls. And, unlike Bitch PhD,I neglected to hide my identity well enough from my future school so now they know, if they read my blog, I'm not the genius they might have hoped for.

On a bright note: I did figure out how to reprogram a new garage door opener. Our old one was but a circuit-board, some binary switches and a battery. Now our door goes up. And it goes down.

This could be a weekly post--like a column. Dumb things I did this week. Look forward to Fridays to hear how I managed to hemorrhage another $700 in car repairs or neglected to ask the countertop guys why they left behind four pounds of granite in the form of dust on my new cabinets.

Updated to include biggest boner of all: Remodeling kitchen 5 months before you're moving out of state. It has been the 3rd circle of hell having it redone. And it will be the 5th circle leaving it--so beautiful it is, I might even post pictures.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Updated blog list

Dr. Write very kindly took me to dinner at Martine last week for successfully getting the hell out of graduate school. We had lovely tapas--lamb with pomegranate sauce, almost cajun scallops and the beef tenderloin tips with a lovely crouton and a basil aioli. And wine of course.
While we were eating, I annoyed myself by talking about blogs. And Thirty-One had me over to dinner for delicious Wahoo (Ono) with a cherry, wine sauce, spinach with prosciutto, broiled zucchini with parmesan and we further discussed with her DH what's different about blogs and webpages and essays and blog posts.
It's amazing how much time I've wasted reading them the past few weeks. I forgive myself for these reasons: 1-it's one thing I can do while feeding/playing with/watching Zoe. It only requires one hand. Even reading needs two and though I love every minute I get to spend with the Zoster, I need a tad more mental stimulation than peek-a-boo. 2-with the kitchen upended and my bathroom doubling as service station and bath house, I can't cook and I'm trying to avoid any other household duties while dust spirals and 3-I feel like when I move, I can take my blogfriends with me. It's amazing how quickly invested I can get and how immediately intimate blogs seem. I know it's a false intimacy to some degree, but I like the idea that if, when I'm in Michigan, I run into Barely Tenured and can ask how her classes are going. It may be a wispy connection, but it's better than just googling about.
I'm off to write something less wispy right now, assuming Baby Z stays asleep until 4. I'm writing an essay right now but I miss the novel blog though. Sleepy-E finished his but maybe Lis is ready to start again? Dr Write, you ready to write?
And, last question--is there such a thing as blogger shoulder?

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

quotidian

Thirty-one (ha! I just got the 2nd meaning of her blog title--she IS 31.) said that I should post the essay I was writing and see how it differs from sending it out and publishing it in a magazine. I do wonder how my pontifications change depending on the medium it's presented in. A blog post is not an essay yet I see a lot of long blogs that are full of good writing and are topic-specific enough that they verge on becoming art. I wonder, as I traipse through the blogs of some many people, if they're all actually writers too, publishing in the land of lit mags, commercial mags, and in books that I would read if I wasn't reading blogs.
Hm. Perhaps Dr. Write and I can have a panel at AWP.
Other trouble: Still kitchening. I'm sitting here hoping that Zoe will sleep through the airgun that's stapling the trim to the walls. Why are we home? Because there's no where else to go. My mom is sick and Erik's parents live so far in the mountains that it takes a week of grocery shopping to go up there. Where else can a mom and her baby go for ALL day? 31's? No, the nanny drives me mad. Though 31 does have wireless DSL.....
Also: Too much wine this March. With AWP, job offers, birthdays, PhD defenses, and going out to dinner every single night, there's been a few mornings of deep headache and metal jaw. I'm hoping April is less celebratory.
Cats. Too many of them. Is it too late to donate them to science? I'm afraid, after Zoe's RSV, that she may be prone to asthma. 4 cats, a dog, and a house under construction (please don't spew lead paint, please), will not be good.
And this is how my blog differs ever so slightly from my essays: On the blog, I stick to one topic never. On my essays, I at least try one topic. For at least a page.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Premature Write-elation

You know when you haven't had sex for a long time and then you do and everything seems weird--like the pores of your partner seem a little gigantic and their genitalia a bit too pink? That's how it feels trying to write after a 4 month haitus. I'm trying to get to it--the job market, Zoe's hospitalization, the kitchen remodel, AWP--each worked to steal whatever writing mojo or motivation I had.

Now, when I sit down to write, my words seem pimply and my sentences awfully raw. I wonder if I can write while Zoe bounces or while I stuff QW envelopes or perhaps on the way to pick up tile????

On another note, or, speaking of genitalia, the lot they want to build on nextdoor has asked for a height and size variance. I want to go tonight to protest but I've gone to enough political meetings in Utah to know that I'll leave dejected and sad. And Zoe won't have that much fun either. But I think we'll go anyway. How can I complain about the 3 car garage I'm staring at if I didn't complain?

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Back to back vacation

Except it never is. Before we left for AWP in Austin, Erik and I had to completely empty out our kitchen so that while we were gone, the new kitchen cabinets could be installed. Our garbage can(and a number of neighbors' garbage cans were) filled to the brim. Packing for the trip and for Zoe's trip up to her grandparents, asking the neighbor to not only feed the cats but change the litter box, and check in with my webct students was work. AWP itself, although I was there for work, was not actually work. It was great fun. I saw my friends from SLC and friends who now live afar and my new colleagues. I made some new friends and connected with Dinty Moore who has been so kind to me. Erik was so cool and sat at the table in the Bookfair and sold magazines for me and Dave.
I'm thinking now of compiling some essays to teach next semester. I'll try to post some stuff at http://teach-essay.blogspot.com/
I'm really looking forward to working on syllabi for GVSU.
Which is part of the now work: more kitchen stuff-shop for cabinets, pay two tickets for my expired plates, send out Quarterly West, taxes. Another vacation masquerading as work.
Glad to be back.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

AWP

Off to Austin where I hope to see Lisa B. and Dr. Write. After the whirlwind of December & January travel, I'm not too excited to go, but at least I won't be interviewed. Instead, I'll be hawking the magazine and eating too much.

The new cabinets came today. They are too beautiful. We'll never be able to leave now.
What kind of dumbasses redo their kitchen while they're on the job market?

Don't answer that.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Defensive

That's Dr. Otterbutt from now on.