tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298353912024-03-07T12:24:42.674-08:00Half An AcreAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-68386618052555817212008-05-07T07:51:00.000-07:002008-05-07T08:57:21.607-07:00DoorsIt's undoubtedly spring now, and apparently spring is the season of revelations. As the world wakes and opens, so do we, ready after a season of protective bunkering to consider what it means to be a person in a world, shocked by the newness of green into new ways of seeing, reminded by all of the people stumbling around in the sun of things we've said or promises we've made. Pluvialis at Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-19197649073442907282008-04-30T08:22:00.000-07:002008-04-30T08:41:30.078-07:00SomethingSo I'm sitting in Not My Usual Coffee Shop, trying, trying, trying to turn this draft of a draft of a chapter into an actual chapter draft. But I'm not doing that, obviously, because I'm typing this post. If, as I said in my last post, the discipline of grad school is the discipline of a thousand questions, today I'm answering a petulant, "Uhhhh, GO! AWAY!" in response to each of them. ResistanceAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-53095639684204238262008-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:002008-04-28T19:03:39.021-07:00AnswersI often leave the television on the in the background as I clean the kitchen or shove laundry into the dryer. Click it on and let it squawk to keep me moving. Last week, I walked past the TV just as a Today show anchor informed those of us unfortunate enough to have the program on that simple, everyday decisions, such as "whether to have skim or soy milk in your latte" took energy and were tiringAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-57666094545023054662008-04-08T17:57:00.000-07:002008-04-08T18:45:42.716-07:00DraftingIn 1998, my good friend O and I went on a 10-day adventure to Alaska. We'd planned and purchased and organized and we'd traveled together before, and we thought we had the whole thing down to a science. But we hadn't counted on Alaska. We hadn't counted on a land so big that it threw off our very ability to judge how small we were in the world. On our first day, our shuttle driver pointed across Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-60417752060840681022008-02-25T13:50:00.000-08:002008-02-25T13:55:28.790-08:00ImpasseLast week, I was on a research trip in Minnesota. It is, of course, absurd to travel to Minnesota in February. But when you're sitting in the archives, the weather outside matters less. It does matter, though, and the way I could tell this was that I couldn't default to walking everywhere, which is my preferred method of getting around in a new city. You learn a city faster that way. But instead,Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-9792531432735512922008-02-17T08:11:00.000-08:002008-02-17T08:45:24.249-08:00An Open Letter to Barack ObamaSenator Obama: I am a Democratic voter who will soon go to the polls to cast my primary vote. I want to support you. I really do. But I can't. (Nor can I support your main opponent.) I've seen you speak, had chills from the power of your rhetoric, and responded to the power of your message. But as a citizen who is gay, I believe you take my vote for granted and count on self-hatred and the fear Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-5134619318239175772008-02-10T11:56:00.000-08:002008-02-10T12:11:04.388-08:00Down By The WaterLong ago, in my last blog post, I wrote that sometimes you're standing on a cliff, paralyzed by the fear of falling, and all you really can do is jump. It's true. Sometimes it's the only right thing to do, not because the ending is assured or the world at the top dangerous, but because you know there are places you have to go and there are no maps and in the end fear is the worst possible law to Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-56277610581800408662007-12-11T16:31:00.001-08:002007-12-11T17:23:03.436-08:00To Jump or Not To JumpToday's radical revelation: Fear and Truth are not the same thing.Have I posted that already? Surely that's been the revelation of the day before. It's one of those things I have to realize every ten days or so because I cannot, for the life of me, integrate it into my responses to things. Just because I feel terrified of, say, writing my dissertation, does not mean that I am incapable of writingAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-86149177795817857352007-11-30T08:05:00.000-08:002007-11-30T09:29:43.717-08:00Grad School, AGAIN?This fall, my friend Z. went on one of those alumni association tours of China. Just her, her mom, and a bus full of strangers she might not ever have spoken to otherwise. One night, she reported, on the way to dinner—in China—another tourist asked what they'd be eating and, when told about the Chinese restaurant where they'd be dining, responded with, "Chinese AGAIN?"I laugh about this story Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-82607313337890463592007-11-27T19:56:00.000-08:002007-11-27T21:39:48.996-08:00Lecture CoasterI've been trying, for a while now, to write a post about the experience of lecturing my own class. I've realized that I'm having a hard time because, for as much brain power as it might take to write a lecture, the actual experience of giving the lecture is wholly physical for me. It comes from gut and spirit and something not altogether of this world. When I lecture, the world shrinks away, and Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-61650239666072510462007-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:002007-11-04T12:05:43.647-08:00Food FantasiesI am pretending, for the moment, that I do not have a million papers to grade, a lecture to write (on a book I haven't read) and a dissertation to research. I am pretending, just for a moment, that I haven't been horribly neglectful of this blog and my small and much-loved handful of readers and that I don't have a half dozen half-drafted blog posts on other subjects waiting for completion. I Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-2299503664660956712007-10-19T16:19:00.000-07:002007-10-19T16:34:16.622-07:00Under the SeaI haven't posted in forever. I've been sick, traveling, lecturing, taking part in the organizational clusterfuck that was the Chicago marathon. All of these things made me feel flighty and unanchored, drifting from one event and deadline to another. That might have been worrisome had it gone on very long. Not to worry. This weekend I'm working on a ten-page funding proposal. I hate funding Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-49237663605808963152007-09-22T12:17:00.000-07:002007-09-27T09:39:59.072-07:00Sinking ShipAbout two years ago, aware that I hadn't yet read a book that was very important to my field, I asked my friend J if I could borrow his extra copy. He readily agreed, since he'd been referring to the book in conversations for some time and knew I needed to read it. So he lent me his extra copy and I took the book home and promptly didn't read it. I moved it from pile to pile, shelf to shelf. TimeAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-47119835682518707222007-09-16T18:08:00.000-07:002007-09-16T18:36:12.917-07:00Want AdI have a leaky faucet in my kitchen, and it's driving me out of my mind. I have a very hard time ignoring drippy kinds of noises. It feels like a constant, rhythmic poking at my brain, and and I cannot summon the amount of focus I need to just let it fade into the background. Instead, each drip dances before my eyes, pulls on my earlobes, blows on my nose. I'm pretty sure there is a name for thisAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-6024855825624890412007-09-11T11:32:00.000-07:002007-09-11T11:49:48.156-07:00Something ShinyI'm sitting at my computer, looking out the window on a gorgeous day. The crayola blue sky is wearing a cloudy halo of gray and white, and the wind is blowing hard enough that the smell of fall is leaking in through the open windows. In my yard, I have a birdfeeder with cakes of safflower seeds, and around it dance a collection of chickadees and cardinals, flying and swooping and twirling. They Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-39391090990770969572007-09-10T20:17:00.000-07:002007-09-10T20:46:05.768-07:00Read History. Be Fearless.Every once in a while, what we ask students to do in a classroom requires that they be brave. It requires that they use their whole minds and whole hearts to truly see the material, to seize it, to make it belong to them. Sometimes, we ask them to look for stereotypes or caricatures when acknowledging them in the text is acknowledging that they live in their brains, as well. Sometimes, we ask Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-84631497348108546042007-09-10T07:14:00.000-07:002007-09-10T09:40:29.349-07:00Boots FirstIt's amazing the difference a good pair of boots will make. Fall has arrived to my great midwestern locale, and with it the need for socks and footwear. And when it comes to footwear, I choose boots. I have two pairs that I love without reserve. One is a pair of tall, black Fluevogs with a funky heel and the number 10 stamped in smeary ink on its soft, camel-colored lining. These boots have gone Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-29264266209121821322007-09-05T11:43:00.000-07:002007-09-09T06:11:25.364-07:00Sleeping BeautyI'm very slow to wake. First thing in the morning, it's all I can do to move my body from the bed to the couch. That's a first step. I eventually get myself to my computer, check my e-mail, read a few blogs. My brain will wake, but I won't be ready to talk. It's like I live in a fort made of blankets. First thing in the morning, the blankets are at their fluffiest point of the day, and it takes aAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-35900401137768574872007-08-27T13:31:00.000-07:002007-08-27T13:55:01.993-07:00I Want to BelieveOn Saturday night, I noted a very odd bruise on my right elbow. Now, that sounds stupid and not at all alarming, but I was alarmed. The bruise was round and donut-shaped and very black. It encircled my elbow perfectly and I was quite surprised when I discovered it in the shower. I hadn't whacked my elbow on anything. Not anything I could remember, anyway. And if you end up with a large, black Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-44142284045660480512007-08-24T09:14:00.000-07:002007-08-24T12:27:02.921-07:00Light Coming on the PlainsI just got back from Albuquerque, where I'd gone to visit my grandmother and her husband. The southwest was hot and still and the house crowded with relatives who seemed most interested in knowing when I was going to finish this damn PhD if they showed any interest at all. My grandmother's husband doesn't see well but insists on driving, there were six of us packed into a single sedan for many Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-44703893039249725122007-08-24T08:36:00.000-07:002007-08-24T12:26:40.388-07:00Will Work For No FoodCurrently, I am actually sitting by my mailbox. Ok, it's on the outside of the house and I'm on the inside, but it's right there outside this window, and I'm watching it. I'm waiting for the financial aid check that feels like it is well overdue. It's the check that will cover the bills and rent until the semester's first paycheck and then supplement my meager earnings until January, when anotherAcrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-11626405968829782442007-08-15T21:17:00.000-07:002007-08-15T21:37:47.442-07:00MuseI've been trying to come up with a blog post about the ways that my research cracks me up. I mean, it's really funny stuff. I could go on for hours about why I think it's crucial to our understanding of the period or why understanding it could have an impact on culture today. But seriously, I keep going back to it because it makes me laugh. Of course, the problem is that I can't really write Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-25814948907032343172007-08-09T16:02:00.001-07:002007-08-09T16:37:47.842-07:00Road RageI was almost hit by a car today. By almost, I mean by inches, and by inches I do not mean 15 or 18 inches. I mean that there were perhaps three inches between my hip and the bumper of a car that drove through a cross walk as I was running across the street. I'd stopped and the car had stopped and I then proceeded, assuming that he'd look both ways before driving though. He did not. He did not Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-29295466844690181112007-08-08T12:31:00.000-07:002007-08-08T13:05:11.929-07:00GuttersWhen I was small, I lived in a big brick house on what became, several blocks west, Main Street. It was a wide, paved street with proper gutters and sidewalks. When it rained in the summer, the gutters would fill with water and run like a stream, and we'd make sailboats out of sticks and notebook paper and race them through the gutters in front of my house, stomping around in the water in our Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29835391.post-40359461639053169112007-07-27T12:47:00.000-07:002007-07-27T12:54:59.999-07:00Friday Photo BloggingI was in Edinburgh on my birthday this year. I was alone and wandering the city and in a ridiculously good mood, feeling like I had the freedom to do anything I wanted any minute that I wanted it. As I walked out of my B&B on my way for dinner, (and oh, god, what a fantastic dinner it was) I found this little snail on the front walk. I put my camera down on the wet ground and took his picture, Acrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16355330785074602766noreply@blogger.com3