I forgot.

Something funny happened in my seminar on Monday. It was the last day of class, and I'm not going to be at the last class dinner because I'll be TRAINING FOR MY NEW FIRST REAL JOB FOR THREE WHOLE WEEKS UP IN BIG-CITY BETHESDA MARYLAND ALL BY MY LONESOME. So they were never going to see me again, probably. So the professor says, "Why don't we all just take a minute to celebrate Heath?" And they did. As much wild applause as you could hope for from a room partially filled with eleven non-drunk graduate students.

I basked. It's the little moments, you know?



Also, I got drunk last night at my OTHER professor's house. Good thing i like her. I was a little hung over for our meeting today.

Also, apparently there is a beach band playing across the street from me. In my little, quiet, SO not beach neighborhood. Right now they're playing "how sweet it is to be loved by you."

Enormity.

Well, I turned in the Laud paper today. It's....ooooooo-KAAAYYY, but it's not amazing or anything. Although it did turn out to be 26 pages long. (Everything I've turned in in that class has been uber-long. The professor wrote me back and quipped, "ah, the enormity of Laud". Well, if you weren't in the class, or a seventeenth-century scholar, which odds are you aren't, you won't get that. But it was FUNNY.)

Whoo. Academic jokes.

I'm going to bed now.

The Zen of simple sentences.

I think I have a cavity. I've never had a cavity. I'm a little freaked. Maybe it's just random tooth-pain?

I need more coffee. I'm tired of writing this paper. I refuse to use anything but simple declarative sentences. Fuck a damn semi-colon up in this mug. I've been up since 6:00. I've only had one cup of coffee. I can finish everything in time.

I refuse to stress. I refuse to stress. I refuse to stress.

But he was an opium junkie, so...

Up since 5:30. Have ingested much tea. In fact, am feeling kind of geeked. But I am closing in on Laud. Man, I never knew that Coleridge was such a religious firebrand! He says things like this about poor old Laud all the time:

“O Heavens! what a Leash of Patron Saints have the Tory Clergy fixed on for the Anglican Church!...Archbishop Laud, the St. Dominic of the semi-Protestant High Church, the vindictive, hot-headed, narrow-minded, superstitious Bigot – who having sacrificed the peace and prosperity of the Realm to his Monkish Follies, and kindled the flames of Civil War in three Kingdoms, died remorseless with a self-approving Conscience.”

Burn! I guess he told you, Laud!


More tea. Must....have.....more.....tea. (And maybe a bagel!)

My old friend Laud.

I've spent the day with Archbishop Laud. He is NOT a barrel of laughs. It was a good concentrated sitting-in-my-study-day-of-real-work, though. And it's a good day for it outside, cool and grey and pearly looking, a little cool but that kind of soft damp cool like you're walking through a cloud. It encouraged me to stay in instead of go out and prune the azaleas or something. Woo!

And I'm not done yet!! I bet I have another good 6 or so hours in me before my brain fries. Especially once I get that Hoegaarden in me - I'll be refreshed and ready to do battle again. Why is Hoegaarden so unnaturally delicious? it smells like I always THOUGHT that mead would smell - like flowers and honey. (Mead DOESN'T smell OR taste like that - or like anything good. it's more like....rancid rotten fermenting honey mixed with cheese and vinegar. YUCK. Don't try it.)

My husband finished a paper lickety-split and decided to have a shot of Maker's Mark before he headed out to class. We're quite the party-learning household around here.

I went to try to get my fingerprints taken (for the NEW JOB - they do a background check. I mean, seriously, how exciting is that? It makes me feel kind of felonious!) But the police department don't take fingerprints (unless, presumably, you've done something untoward) except on Mondays and Wednesdays between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00. That seems weird. I mean, you wouldn't think (and I'm probably wrong here) but you wouldn't THINK that taking fingerprints was such a skilled endeavor that only one person in the whole department could do it - but apparently you would be wrong. And also, you have to drive all the way to Raleigh to get a copy of your driving record. The powers-that-be in this state want to make it good and difficult for you to do anything moving-vehicle related. Perhaps that's their way of encouraging people to ride the bus or the (non-existent) light rail service. (By the way, I've decided that if I get a job in a big city, we are definitely making it a PRIORITY to live in a place where all our transit needs are met by the metropolis and not by our selves. I want to ride the bus with crazy people like Mimi Smartypants, NOT drive in to town from some miserable suburb and spend 2 soul-sucking hours on the interstate every day.)

Last night I dreamed that we adopted little Chinese babies, and so did several of our friends. I also dreamed that I went to the best yard sale EVER, in which my friend Heatherleigh was moving to a smaller house and needed to get rid of a whole bunch of her really cool stuff. The best thing about this really cool stuff was that it was free. I scored two rugs and a whole bunch of little knick-knacky stuff, and I was going back with a dolly to get this huge fountain made of cobalt blue tile with oranges sculptured all over it. My old roommate Lori and I had a retarded kitten, too. What a great dream. (I dream about great yard sales and heavenly thrift stores ALL THE TIME - enough so that I would remark on it - where everything is amazing and practically free, and you get so much stuff that your cart is overflowing. What does that mean - that I'm a consumerist asshole? That I have penis envy? That I really dig a good bargain?)

Whoa.

I just peed, and my pee looked like vitamin pee (that greeny-yellow flourescent color) but I DIDN'T TAKE ANY VITAMINS TODAY! Or yesterday! Isn't that weird?

Perhaps my body has mutated and I'm manufacturing my own B vitamins (I think that's what makes it green). I hope I pass on that one to my kids. It seems handy.

Productivity backlash.

Yesterday? Very productive. About 8-9 hours of work on PP presentation for Monday. Today? Not so much. I've been up since 9:30, and I'm dressed and all and I took the dog for a walk and had breakfast and coffee - but I made the fatal mistake of starting to read blogs while I ate, and now I CAN'T STOP.

But I HAVE to go to the library and scan later. I have no choice in the matter. And I don't even know HOW to scan. So, I'll have to become productive at some point.

Does anybody want to talk about...

Archbishop William Laud and the Oxford Movement? Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that Abp Laud, while vilified and reviled in his own time (up to and long after his death - people were probably scared to stick up for him for a good long spell) actually, you know, got a little bit recuperated in the 19th century, what with the Romantics and then the Oxford Movement. Plus we know how all those guys loved to look back on the Good Old Days before...well, I guess before the 18th century. (Who wouldn't want to skip over the 18th century, if they could. Bleah.) And so, I have to find some 19th century references to him - it can't ALL be based on drawing inferences b/t what HE thinks and what the OM guys think. That's played.

No takers? Well, then, how about a rousing discussion about performativity in the Turn of the Screw, and how it's totally influenced by James's playwrighting and theater-criticking? (And while you're at it, let's run over how it's related to the acting theories of William Archer and the psychophysiological theory of emotion of brother William. I'm a little unclear on that part.)

And yes, I know that 'criticking' isn't a word. And if it IS a word, that's probably not how it's spelled.

Feel free to weigh in up until April 29th. Sigh.



(In better news, I did get a shitload done on my presentation on female purposive exercise in the 19th and early 20th centuries!! PowerPoint can suck me!)

Oh yeah, I got the job. And I'm excited.

A little scared, but excited.

Oh, good lord.

More stuff. We have to get more stuff into this house! This house that is already packed shoulder-to-shoulder with stuff! Stuff that's been in storage for a year! (Which we have been PAYING storage on for a year...) It's enough to make one become a ... a non-stuff person. What do they call those? Minimalist.

Things I did today:

1. Read trauma theory stuff for class. (But only half of it [and that not the important half] because I misread the assignment.)

2. Cleaned kitchen. Yay.

3. Paid bills. YAY!! I hate this more than anything! Except maybe R hates it more than me! So I procrastinate every month and am late every month! (Also switched over our Verizon bill to...wait for it...1500 minutes a month. AARGH! but that's how many we've been using, and it's $99/month if you know that's how much you need, and it's $225/month if you pay the minute to minute charges! Even MY lame math skills say that $99 is cheaper than $225 no matter how you slice it.)

4. Walked dog. Moderate yay.

5. Cleaned out R's desk and transferred all. that. stuff. to my study. (I have *6* daytimer/filofax thingies. All of them VERY nice leather, of varying sizes. Anybody want to buy one? Because I bought a PALM PILOT, and I don't need no paper organizer.)

6. Worked outside for a couple of hours (reading trauma theory in the sun and drinking iced coffee. Mmmmmm.)

7. Drank wine. Yay!


Things I did not do today:

1. Work on any of the goddamn papers and projects I have due in the next 2 weeks. Boo.



Jesus, I am a terrible long-range planner and doer-of-things-ahead-of-time. How am I ever going to be a professor if I leave all this stuff till the last minute? When will I develop the habits of mind that include little things like, oh, self-discipline??? THIS is why I have so many planners - b/c I'm a terrible planner!

But seriously. It's a little ridiculous. I mean, I work about 7-8 hours a day (I'm only counting time spent actually working, not time spent fucking around while LOOKING like I"m working) - isn't that what most people spend? Or LESS?? I mean, professors (and grad students) deserve evenings off too WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.

Hippies and fire.

The hippies across the street are having some sort of acid-induced (that's an assumption on my part) fire ceremony. There's somebody over there doing a fire baton routine - all I can see is the fire whirling and twirling around and around. It's kind of beautiful, although I do kind of hate the hippies.

Scary! Scary new things!

Good Lord. I am so not a grown-up. Today I drove to Bethesda, Maryland for a job interview and it just about killed me. (I'm all luxuriously spread on on ONE of the big old beds in this hotel room. Ahhhh, no Robert hogging the middle of the bed and snoring and farting - I can get behind that for one night.) (More than one night, though - no.)

Back to the terror. I've driven in cities and stuff before - I drove all over New York when I was 21 (but I was dumber then, I think), and I can get around Atlanta fine - but man, the drive up I-95 is hellacious. It's incredibly confusing, and traffic-cone-y, and all CHANGE LANES NOW! THIS IS NO LONGER A LANE! And everybody else is all big-city driving. No good. I'm all tense and numb now. (GOD, the worst part of all was figuring out the goddamn parking garage under the hotel! It's like a cave where they age blue cheese or hide explosives a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. All small and twisty and dark and you can't park on THIS level, and hotel guests park HERE, NO NOT THERE, OVER HERE! And then it costs $12 a night, even if you're staying at the hotel!)

I'm a total weenie. I'm pretty much not good at anything I'm not already good at. I'm a shaky girly girl when I'm in a situation that I haven't mastered fully yet. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if I'm slightly agoraphobic. If I've worked there for a while, or lived there for a while, or gone to school there for a while, I'm a blithe spirit. But toss me in a new situation and I'm small and mousy and frightened. Maybe this is why I didn't go through the job-hunting process after I graduated from college - new stuff, ick.

Hey, I'm 35 years old. If I can't handle this now I'm...well, that would be extremely lame. So, off to conquer Bethesda, Maryland! (Thank God the interview is just across the street tomorrow - no more navigating till time to go to Meredith's.)

P.S. Laura, I've been looking you up on the web and you'd be surprised how many people are named Laura Carter. And how many of them are Christian missionaries or 16 year old girls in school plays or camp counselors or crappy poets. You would have laughed your ass off at your ego-Google, my friend!


P.P.S I irrationally hate everybody on the web that's not you. Especially that new Laura Carter in bands in Athens right now. She ought to change her fucking name - that's a sacrilege. Elf Power, my ass.


P.P.P.S I did find one really good eulogy that I hadn't seen before. http://travissutton.net/2002_12_01_r900old.html
That's you all over.

I dreamed about you last night, Laura, and this morning I can't stop crying.

You were doing a show and someone else was singing the verses, and I had to keep reminding you to go on for the choruses. Your brother was there (you don't have a brother). I knew this was the last time, and I kept taking pictures to remember you by, to remember the moment.

Then I saw you as a toddler in a onesie and you rushed the camera with the biggest open-mouthed grin in the whole world.

I miss you, my friend.

Hedonism.

Sitting here at my desk on a gorgeous spring Sunday afternoon, looking out my study window at my neighbor's HUGE redbud tree in full bloom. Drinking a tall iced vodka and soda with lime and feeling mellow from a fortuitous (who am I kidding, I did it on purpose) interaction with painkillers. Reading mimi smartypants and periodically laughing aloud, to the great joy of my husband and the Pints, who are currently sequencing their record. (They always think that I'm laughing at them.) Also, I'm wearing earplugs, so everything seems very faint and muffled to me.

I'm wrapped in a cocoon of spring and substances!

(And also I'm procrastinating! Although I bet any paper that I wrote now would be totally awesome.)

Resolution.

I have been reading mimi smartypants's diary from the beginning. It gives me the hope that I too can become a concise and evocative writer. Her early entries kind of suck. (Do not get your feelings hurt, mimi-lovers - the later ones are pure genius. It is nothing but proof that doing a thing makes you get better at the thing. Practice, and all that jazz.)

Hence, the resolution. Write in here more I will thusly causing more of the betterness quality to ensue. See? It is working already.

Every time my dog farts (more often than you might think) he looks indignantly around at his butt and immediately gets up and leaves the room. Leaving the scene of an accident is against the law. Bad doggy.

God loves basketball. I'm serious.

Today I'm riding the bus to class. Out in front of University Baptist Church on the official church signboard it says:
"And God saw that it was good. GO HEELS!"

I'm so not kidding.