journal of a joface

Ricky and I took my new cat (Hopkins) to the vet today to be neutered. When we went to pick him up, the vet-techs didn't want to give him up. He won them over with his charms, apparently. Little do they know that yesterday, my charming cats did the following: 1)broke an antique lamp (second one this year) 2) besmirched my freshly laundered white matelasse duvet cover 3) found a scone in my bag; dragged it out; smashed it into crumbs; chewed through the plastic bag; spread it all over the house. not so charming. This is a terrible and blurry picture, but it gives you an idea of what I'm dealing with in my 850 square-foot house.

I'm sort of going nuts with school. So much Dickens; so much Foucault; so much of everything. Academia is overwhelming, and it's hard to shake the sense that this work determines my life. On my way home from class yesterday, I was thinking about an alumnae panel that I went to at Wellesley. Nora Ephron spoke, and several scientists. That same year, I went to hear two more alums, Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright. What influenced me the most, however, was an alum who became a cattle rancher. Clearly, I don't have much of a desire to raise beef cows. But what I loved about this woman was that she used her elite education to do what she loved--and that just happened to be ranching. At times like this, when I'm sinking in the Lacan, it helps to remember that the Ph.D. is optional.

I can't believe that I was in Hawaii a month ago. I was looking at the pictures again, and it's shocking to see myself on a beach with my cousin (the sister I never wanted) wearing A TANK TOP. And now I'm here, with long johns and wool socks and a floor-length down parka that I both hate (not so flattering) and LOVE (so warm!).

I was planning on going out tonight for a happy-hour with a group of people who emerge at 8:30 from a post-colonialism seminar (this is what happens when you're in an english department...), but I got home this afternoon and started feeling quite crappy, so I took a nap. This week has really worn me out, with the hideously cold weather and the overwhelming amount of reading. I finished "Our Mutual Friend" (Dickens), which is nothing short of a miracle considering that I had to read 400 pages of it in the last day and a half. But since that's what I really enjoy reading (rather than theory...blech), I don't mind spending hours and hours with a novel. I even really liked the theory assignment for that class--Franco Moretti's "Atlas of the European Novel," which included some really interesting stuff about Austen that made me feel less like I'm sinking into a mire of Derrida and Lacan and everything about this discipline that makes me want to run screaming into the woods.

Anyway, this week has been long, and I didn't feel so great, so I've been at home all night with les chats and Ricky. It's really going to suck when he goes away to school. But I made crepes with nutella and banana for dinner--my first ever crepe attempt, and they came out really well. I think that I might finally have a remedy for the crepe withdrawal I've been suffering ever since I went to Paris years ago. So, sorry to those I didn't see tonight, but crepes and my couch and les chats ended up being the best solution to a week that has involved frequent voyages to the edges of my wits. -35 will do that to you.

low tonight: -19. "high" tomorrow: -4.
from the weather channel:
WIND CHILLS WILL FREQUENTLY BE BETWEEN 20 AND 35 DEGREES BELOW ZERO....WHEN IT IS THIS COLD...DO NOT TOUCH METAL SURFACES WITH UNCOVERED HANDS. YOUR SKIN MAY FREEZE ON CONTACT.

it's too cold to go outside, it's too cold to go near any of the exterior doors in my house, it's too cold to go in the basement. there's ice on the inside of the windows. it's definitely too cold to do my reading.

Walking up the stairs to Science Hall this morning--one of the older buildings on campus, and one that I'd never been in before--I realized something funny that I miss about Wellesley. The building that houses the English department here is a hulking concrete thing that must date from the 1960's or 70's. The views of the lake from the classrooms are amazing, but the building itself is not so exciting. Science Hall, on the other hand, is more than a hundred years old, red brick on the outside, and worn on the inside in the manner that reminds me of all the buildings at Wellesley--the Quad, Founders, Green Hall, and the Library--that refuse to be modernized. This morning I suddenly remembered how so many of the stone steps at Wellesley dip down in the middle from more than a century of constant use.

I loved our dorm rooms (some of them former maids' quarters) with funny angles, unpredictable steam radiators, old windows and wood floors. I loved how the old science center at Wellesley was still inside the new one. And I miss those worn steps--up to the library, down into Founders, behind Green Hall--that we and so many other women have walked. Ok, some men, too.

i made really good brownies tonight--from a ghiradelli's mix, but with walnuts and good chocolate chips stirred in. mmm. i enjoyed my last day before the semester begins by lazing about the house, watching some tv for the first time in a month, and hanging out with the new kitten, hopkins, and his brother, who will soon be moving to a new home with a friend of mine. i also shoveled snow with ricky and planted some hyacinth bulbs in a pot so i can pretend that it's going to be spring soon. the snow made it hard to pretend about the whole spring thing for very long, but i already have some daffodils blooming in the windowsill, so that helps. wordsworth and i share an appreciation of those.

here!

so, it was worse than we thought it was going to be, and the return trip from hawaii ended up spanning three days--sunday evening, all of monday, and the wee hours of tuesday morning. i'm in stl now, but i'm so exhausted that i can't fall asleep. the last leg of our trip was redeemed by getting bumped to first class--i'm not sure that i would have made it through another flight in steerage after getting three hours of sleep on a plane over the pacific. instead of the torment of row 34, our last spot on the 6 hour flight from hawaii, we got huge seats, strangely augmented and overly tanned women smelling of watermelon bubble gum, dinner, and dessert. and we got to watch "The Queen," which I enjoyed enough to stay awake for.the last 24+ hours have been pretty hellish, and I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning, but at least I have a bed tonight. Even if my giant orange cat is refusing to get out of it.

I'm in the Los Angeles airport for the next five hours, followed by three in Las Vegas, then another flight to St. Louis. We were supposed to get in earlier by a connection through Dallas, but that flight was canceled, blah blah. We left Hawaii last night immediately after being on a boat all day, and I am sticky and gross and so tired. Poor me, you say. What a tough trip to Hawaii. Well. The reason we were on a boat is that the Hawaii office of tourism gave us a boat trip as a goodwill gesture, as the condo we stayed in was burglarized the first night we were in Hawaii. Someone came in and took my mom's purse and my brother's shorts off of the table while my brother was sleeping on a sofa-bed a few feet away. The empty purse and shorts appeared later, in a parking lot. Lovely. The condo complex was shady in other ways, too. Like, the toilet leaked from the second floor onto the dining room table. twice. There are other highlights, but you get the idea.

We spent 6 days on Kauai, interrupted by one day in Honolulu. The day in Honolulu was the best--we saw Pearl Harbor, my mom gave her conference paper, and we shopped in an international district. Kauai, on the other hand, was sort of iffy. We stayed in Kapaa, Kauai because of some friends who live there, but it's not somewhere I would go again. I don't know that I would go to Hawaii again, because it seems to me like it's not that different from a lot of beachy places that don't require extremely long flights to reach. Like Belize. or Sanibel Island, in Florida--both places that have better beaches than Kauai, and fewer Costcos. There were some nice beaches and such in Kauai, but there was also the robbery issue, which sort of tainted the trip, and the traffic was awful, which meant that at night, you could hear the ocean, but most the sirens and cars racing by.

The thing that I like best about Kauai is the feral chicken population. Apparently, a hurricane a few years ago set a bunch of illegally-kept cockfighting roosters, who now roam the island freely with their broods. It's pretty funny, because they mingled with the populations of ornamental chickens that the missionaries apparently brought long ago, and now there are these ridiculous, decorative chickens everywhere. The boat ride involved almost as many puking old men as it did whales, but the whales made up for the puke. They were amazing.

I took some excellent pictures, which I'll post once I'm no longer living in airports. They involve some props reminiscent of the sheepy pictures from cape cod.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore paws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is affraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Icneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

--Christopher Smart

...but I am so close being done. I finished #2 today, and I'm actually happy with it. It's the first thing that I've written in some time that I actually feel was inventive. That's why I love writing about minor characters--a lot of the people in my class didn't even understand my topic because they didn't remember the 20 pages where Sally Godfrey appears, towards the end of the 500 extremely slow pages of Pamela. I used The Madwoman in the Attic, so I got to talk about Jane Eyre and Bertha. It was actually a fun paper to write. We'll see how the next one goes, but either way, I'm off to Florida in less than a week! After that, it's New Jersey for New Years, Stl. for a few days, then a week in Hawaii and a (shocking, I'm sure) return to good old freezing Madison.

Oh, I saw a girl with a Wellesley totebag going through the revolving doors of the library today. I wanted to say something, but I was walking the other way. I wonder if she was an alumna. Those bags are iconic. I still use mine, sometimes.

I had a moment during class today when I suddenly realized that I am so, so far from Natick and Wellesley. The first year after I left Boston was wrenchingly difficult--there's no solace in the Blue Ridge Mountains when you can't stop haunting Boston Common. It's easier, now, but mostly only because I've forgotten how much I miss the city, and I can no longer recall exactly how I used to walk, the order of the T stops, or the solely urban comfort of being alone in the midst of so many. (Why are the buildings so small here? I want to be dwarfed by concrete and crowds--the infinite pleasure of disappearing and seeing at the same time.) Tonight, however, it's not the city that I'm mapping in my mind.

I'm geographically confused. I've lived in too many places, and they've started to blur together. It's obvious, I know, but there's something about being in class again that makes me think that I can walk down to the ville or drive to Natick--the back way, of course, on that winding road that was so poorly plowed in winter, shoveling the car out of the lot near paintshop pond (before it was "revitalized" and all the toxic dirt was buried in plastic boxes, which I have always imagined as giant tupperware containers--that can't be right), taking the hair-pin turn under that oddly vandalized cement train bridge (graffiti in wellesley?), a school on the right, a co-op market on the left, downtown Natick with its central park, red brick church, and white shingled houses--the deceptively beautiful stretch of road right before you reach the congestion of Natick, a narrow passage between two lakes, red leaves glowing in the murky fog of early winter.

It's bitterly cold here, and ice is creeping out from the lake shores. Soon, they will be frozen solid, like the shallow, coppery marshes. There is an eerie beauty in the pale blue light of winter, watery moonlight and the coal-black outlines of wind blown trees, but tonight I'm longing for New England.

My dad was here for a little bit this weekend. He stopped by last night and brought me early christmas presents (jewelry from scotland, chocolates from sweden) and we went to lunch today. After that, we spent a while in the delightfully sweltering tropical conservatory at the botanical gardens, and I've been slogging through my milton paper ever since. I am working on it right now, in fact, but I'm taking a break to polish off the remainder of a pan of green bean casserole. Ricky ate a little bit, but I'm proud to say that I did most of the damage myself. ah, green bean casserole and milton... a classic combination.

ok, must write. I still have to post a discussion question about Tristram Shandy tonight, and I'm still on page 30, which is as far as I got last week when I posted my first question. Which was about page 30. hmm. I wonder what's on page 31?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJNm6SVG3KA

www.etsy.com is a wonderful place to find presents. Really neat, inexpensive handmade prints, jewelry, and all kinds of stuff. It's amazing. If you sign up for an account, say that joface referred you, because I think that I might get something. And I'm curious about what that might be.

I know that we're all primed for whining at this time of year, but I'm going insane. My brain cannot handle three paper topics at once, and I can't even seem to focus on one at a time, which would be the smart thing to do. I keep getting books mixed up in my head and find myself wondering if I read about transvestites in a Milton book or one for the werewoolfs, or maybe the one about a character in Pamela who is so minor that most of the people I've spoken to about my topic don't even get it because they don't remember her.

As further proof of my madness, I spent a couple of hours on my couch this weekend, watching Love Actually on TBS and bawling. What is my problem? It's hard to get worked up about a movie when it's punctuated by those horrid Pepto Bismol commercials where Godzilla has nausea or indigestion or something. But I managed.

In about three weeks, I'll be in the trailer...I'm not sure whether that's a comforting thought or not. Well, if the werewoolfs don't work out, maybe Weeki Wachee is hiring?

The subject of this post is inspired by Tom Jones, just so you know. Because everyone cares so much about the 18th Century Novel. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be reading Tristram Shandy, but it's just not happening, I read all of Pamela, and I even read all of Tom Jones, which is even longer. But I'm drawing the line at Tristram. It just makes no sense, and I'm not sure that it will make any more sense after 300 or 600 pages, so I'm dumping it in favor of my research papers. RIght now I'm trying to right about Woolf and Werewolves (werewoolfs?). Seriously.

I got a new computer a few days ago, to replace my four and a half year old ibook with the dying display. It's nice to be able to write on something that I don't constantly expect to die...although I'm currently using the trial version of ms office on my new 15.4 inch macbook pro, and it's a bit distracting to try to write about werewoolfs with a giant digital watermark on the page---"Word Test Drive." Thanks, Bill Gates. I get it. As if the pop-up reminders of the dwindling days of the 30-day trial weren't enough.

I put up some christmas lights today--there are little dangling stars in my living room windows, and the kitchen window is framed in little white lights. It's looks quite cute from outside, but it's nothing compared to my neighbor's inflated snowman, moving reindeer, and massive light display. I haven't seen any of those giant inflatable snow globes yet--maybe people here aren't stupid enough to buy them? They're a big deal in West County, STL, but so are yellow hummers. Probably bought by the same people.

there are only six minutes left (cst), but i hope that everybody got to stuff themselves and fight with their families. because that's what thanksgiving is for, right? i made mashed potatoes for the first time ever, and had a wonderful time at my friend noreen's house. her husband made great food, and we got to introduce thanksgiving to a brit, a serbian, and a german.

p.s. extra-happy thanksgiving to you, nell ;)

A quick entry, because I have to go read Paradise Lost and a hundred pages of theory that looks quite bad:

Ricky and I spent the weekend in Chicago--he gave a paper at the M/MLA, and I tagged along. We drove to Chicago on Saturday, after shoveling my sidewalks (eew) and went to the Field Museum, Miracle Mile, and a bad restaurant in Watertower Place that was sort of like Marche. But the food was more like Boston Market. We got sort of lost and wandered around a bit, taking random buses.

Ricky's panel was at 8:30 Sunday morning, and one of the panelists didn't even show up. Then we headed back towards Madison, stopping at Ikea on the way home. I bought candles and a little chest of drawers. It was a very quick trip to Chicago--hopefully, we'll get to go again soon. I want to revisit the aquarium--I went there long ago, with a certain ex-boyfriend's family--another life, indeed.

I was so attached to Boston, but I don't know if I'd really want to live in a city...I liked coming back to my little house. And Madison has everything I need--what were the qualifications for a good place to live, KT? Spring rolls and something else... Charlottesville flunked on that account.

Missouri, for once I'm not ashamed of you. You've surprised me. Good job. All those Jim Talent signs in Chesterfield had me scared, but those Hummer-driving fools probably didn't even vote.

Wisconsin, I'm glad that you're a blue state, but did you have to pass the marriage ammendment? I was expecting a little more from you. It's sort of like when MA elected Mitt Romney. WTF, Wisconsin?