Half Sight of Mountain

On Friday I took a 9-mile walk to and around a park by Lake Washington, where I could see Mt. Rainier and the harvest moon rising. I got a lot done while walking, as I usually do, and was happy. I wish I could have that peace back now.

Update: I just revised a poem about the Donner Party and now I feel much better. It's a weird life, this being a 'poet.'

Have you ever?

Have you ever, in the middle of the city, been awakened at 4 am by the insistent sound of a rooster crowing, and then, half-asleep, listened to it for the next two hours, by your watch, and yet been unsure in the cold light of day, despite the presence in your head of the inevitable Bob Dylan song, of whether the whole thing really happened at all? I kept asking myself today why I was so tired, and then saying to myself, "Oh yeah, the rooster!"

Crazy Old Uncle Ezra

Could someone please explain to me what could possibly be the point of reading Pound's Cantos if you're just going to shake your head in exasperated superiority every time the poem does something you don't understand?

Spaghetti squash with sage and parmesan, parsnips with onions, and chickpeas, spinach salad. "Ethical Joyce." Lots of discussions about the ethics of reading in general. Awkward lunches and dinners with eminent visitor and my awkward professors and colleagues. Conferences. Today I gave a presentation about an assignment from 39B, a process I described as "exorcising a demon." Rediscovering just how great Proust is as a book-on-tape, listened while I cooked, very caught up now in Swann, Odette and the rest of them. Kitcat is caught up in the study of the motion of a ball with a bell inside when swatted with paw, though right now he is working on his practicum in lapbound purring.

As I was lying here typing Kitcat was falling asleep curled up next to me and before he fell asleep entirely he reached out and took my hand with his paw.

I really hate the word limn.

I have to go to bed but if I do it will immediately be morning and I will have to have eight student conferences before I'm fully awake, and then study Pound, and then Joyce, and go out to dinner with our bigtime visiting scholar, and then write a paper, and then go to sleep only to get up and do it all over again. At moments like this Sisterkins and I sometimes imagine we are at a beach resort with a swim-up bar. Wouldn't that be nice?

I'm thinking about just getting in my car and driving out of the city for a little while. Of course, I will have to bring Proust, Joyce, Pound, and 22 student essays. My kitcat looks like a little dragon when he's sleeping.

car etiquette

Maybe I'm crazy or I lived in California for too long, but I feel like there are rules of car etiquette that are pretty clear cut. AND that late at night in a neighborhood where there are muggings, these rules would be observed with particular devotion. For instance . . .

1) If you are giving someone a ride, you insist on taking them to their door; even if they politely offer to walk, you go five minutes out of your way rather than letting them off by the side of the highway. Right?

2) If you and your boyfriend are already giving someone a ride home, and you happen to walk out of the bar with another person you know and have been hanging out with, you don't all walk together for five minutes and then say, mid-sentence, "Well, here's the car!" and pile in without a backward look. I mean, as the kids say, wtf?

Office

I'm so happy: I cleared out the avalanche and now I have an office with my own desk and a whole bunch of shelves and a printer and a huge window with tons of light and a nice tree. And four fun officemates, who, so far, are there when I want to hang out and gone when I want to work quietly, as I just did, finally finishing 3 out of the 4 public health profiles I have to write. (They are due today, so I have to go home, where my notes are, and finish the last one.)

Solipsistic schedule report

Woke up, finished up some lesson planning, rewrote portions of a paper, and left the house around 10:00.

Studied for my Proust quiz (using the English translation, to save time) while walking to school.

Photocopied for class.

Taught from 10:30-12:20.

Went to Proust class from 12:30-2:20 (It's an undergrad class with a professor who doesn't do discussions, which I'm kind of loving . . . except for the quiz, this was an entirely passive two hours)

Went to my office and discovered that the previous inmate has still not cleared out the avalanche of papers he left under my desk; on the plus side, he has also left his tree.

Finished my paper and did the reading for my pedagogy class.

Went to pedagogy class from 3:30-5:20.

Walked home. Fed and pet the cat. Repacked my bag with homework for tomorrow.

Walked back to school.

Tutored from 7:00 to midnight. It was incredibly busy so I literally did not take a break during those five hours.

Took the shuttle home so as not to be robbed and/or killed during the walk.

Had a bowl of oatmeal (late dinner--I really need to go shopping).

Now I have to read 80 pages of the Cantos by 10:00 tomorrow. I so wish I were kidding.

My Articulate Friends

Ever since I didn't get around to getting rid of my reluctantly created facebook account, I've been slowly collecting friends. I'm not very close with most of them, but my stalkerish side has discovered that it's still fun to find out what they're doing via the "friend update" feature, wherein, for those of you who are behind the times in your social networking knowledge, people fill in whatever they want and it appears on their friends' "News Feed" in a format like "Sarah Ann Stove is . . . not getting very much sleep these days," or whatever.

The three latest updates inform me, and I quote, that:

Friend 1 is aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friend 2 is blah, blah, pooped, rrrrrmm!

Friend 3 is AAAAAAAUGHH!!!

It's so great to stay in touch.

More About the Cat

Kit has been accused in some quarters of not being a lap cat. This is so not true. But it's hard to get photo-evidence of this, because the act of taking pictures gets him into curious mode, and then he won't sit still. But anyway, here's one of us both crashed out on The New Yorker. I also took a whole series of me getting groomed, but they're all a little blurry.

Readings

I just spent a very pleasant hour reading "The Singularity of Literature" in the bathtub. The professor didn't bother to order it, so I was reading a printout of my very first ebook: hello, future! My cat likes water and has jumped in the tub a couple of times, but tonight he stayed dry.

Here is my Proust professor's summary of "Into the Wild" (he was talking about the movie, which I haven't seen, but I have read and been disturbed by the book): "He goes to Alaska, eats the wrong potato, gets on a bus, and then . . . we know what happens to people in books!" I think the whole class was totally mystified, but, knowing what he was talking about, I thought it was kind of hilarious.

Now maybe I'll read some Pound in bed. Or maybe on the couch.