Category: deep thoughts

  • it’s the flying

    This has got to be the best-ever article about blogging. An excerpt:

    “It’s the flying. It’s the suspension of punctuation and good manners and even identity. Bloggers at their computers are Supermen in flight. They break the rules. They go into their virtual phone booths, put on their costumes, bring down their personal villains, and save the world. Anonymous or not, they inhabit that source of power and hope. Then they come back to their jobs, their dogs, and their lives…

    Blog writing is id writing—grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty. Whether bloggers tell the truth or really are who they claim to be is another matter, but WTF. They are what they write. And you can’t fake that. ;-)”

  • red, red, red


    For those of you who love red (and you know who you are), you really must take look through the website featuring portraits painted of women in red dresses. It’s quite gorgeous.
    I love every one of these pictures for a different reason–in some it’s the detail, or the unique pose, or the way the painter captures a specific emotion.

    Though artist Minerva Teichert isn’t included in this site, she very well could be. She understood the power of RED. She loved Eugene Field’s poem “Red”:

    Any color, so long as it’s red,
    Is the color that suits me best,
    Though I will allow there is much to be said
    For yellow and green and the rest;
    But the feeble tints which some affect
    In the things they make or buy
    Have never–I say it with all respect–
    Appealed to my critical eye…

    And here are some links for those of you who prefer pink and blue and dragonflies. :)

  • Diary of a Saturday

    8:30 Wake to John snapping pics of me as I’m sleeping. Roll over and contemplate morning. Consider picking up book on nightstand. Doze instead (went to bed after 1 last night. tired.)
    8:45 Roll out of bed and realize that my shoulder is all tight and knotted again Head to John’s office (read: closet cave) for a quick backrub
    8:50 Make latte, toast and pop 4 motrin for shoulder pain
    Kitchen conversation includes:
    I want to see a movie today–Atonement or There Will Be Blood
    John is headed to LA tomorrow, who wants to go with him?
    We’re almost out of milk
    Is chunky peanut butter okay?
    9:00 Latte in hand (ha! got the good mug before John because I hid it well in the dish drainer) and checking on blogs. Leave a few comments, check my comments from yesterday for replies
    9:10 check Freecycle for messages to moderate (none so far–slow day)
    9:20 stretch shoulder and gingerly massage huge knot. Wonder if exercise would be a good or a bad thing.
    9:30 contemplate shower
    9:39 head to shower, interrupted as John chides me for not having my W-2 yet. He’s working on taxes already and has his info. Sigh.
    9:41 heading to shower again
    9:53 John joins me in shower to rub the knot in my back. I giggle when I look down and see that he has a pair of underpants stuck to his foot
    10:00 blow drying, contemplating what to wear
    Thoughts:
    Had planned on not wearing leg today due to sores. Can’t imagine a day on crutches with sore shoulder. Weigh my options. Crawl under covers and read a few chapters of my latest book. Hurts to hold book and read. Lie still and send yoga energy to shoulder. Debate whether to use BenGay or Tiger Balm on shoulder. Decide on the latter as I remember (fondly) buying Tiger Balm in China from the boat captain as we cruised the canals of Suzhou.
    11:02 Get dressed, deciding to wear leg
    11:18 Check email, blogs, post youtube clip from Mom on soloblog. Eat granola cereal in favorite green bowl.
    11:43 CatGirl shares a TicTac with me that’s supposed to be some kind of lemon mint. Tastes like floor polish.
    11:47 heading to kitchen for more motrin
    11:53 stretch and relax and yoga. For shoulder. But leg hurts too much to relax.
    12:32 decide that leg is far too painful, take it off, get into bed
    12:33 nibble a corner off of a muscle relaxant pill. Hoping that it can take the edge off of shoulder pain w/o making me drowsy
    12:35 GamBoy brings me a sandwich in bed. Tuna sandwich with four large spear pickles. He knows I like my pickles. The bread so pickle soggy that I am licking it off my fingers. Drift off into pickly-happy drug-induced sleep.
    4:28 wake to horrible pounding noise. Pound pound pound crash. Realize it is coming from the front door. Get scared. Can’t move body. Start moaning.
    GameBoy emerges from the back bedroom, I mumble for him to check the noise. John and Catgirl are there at the door, having returned from errands w/o keys. They bring in groceries as I try to return life to my sodden limbs.
    4:33 check email and write on blog. Typing not easy with flailing sausage fingers. Hungry, but not sure if I can chew.
    I am one with the couch pillows. TobyJoy is pacing back and forth on the coffee table. Looking at me.
    4:43 Head to kitchen for more motrin. Afternoon tea.
    4:45-8 Reading and more yoga. Stretching on my fitball to open up my tight shoulders
    8:03 John makes pizza dinner. Yum. Especially the mushrooms…mushrooms=tasty. I make an attempt at burping the national anthem, but don’t make it past the first line (I blame muscle relaxant). GameBoy composes spontaneous satirical version of said anthem. CatGirl reads at table.
    8:20 checking email, google reader, freecycle queue, petting Tobykitty
    9:44 will take more motrin, then head to the bedroom where I will watch a bit of a movie, read, and go to sleep

    What was your day like?

  • it irks me

    You know what bugs me? When my kids and/or spouse start hovering around the kitchen at about 4pm saying things like:

    What’s that I smell cooking?
    Have you thought about dinner yet?
    I’m hungry.
    Will dinner be soon?

    I don’t know why these questions drive me batty, but I suppose it has something to do with the look in some people’s eyes when I tell them we’re having Turnip Toss for dinner and, of course, turnips are their very least favorite food. Or maybe it’s because at 4pm on many days I’m still not sure what’s for dinner and it’s like squirting lemon juice into my “I suck at motherhood” wounds every time I hear that question and I have no answer.

    I feel perpetually overwhelmed by the demands of prepping food for two strapping young teens and a verra hungry man-spouse. Adding to that, the late afternoon is probably my grumpiest time of day and so I’m already not on the mood to be reminded of my shortcomings. Yah.

  • i wish…

    Things I wish I would find in my mailbox today:
    *a chinchilla
    *a tin of vanilla velamints
    *black lace
    *a skeleton key
    *a brown paper parcel tied up with string
    *wildflowers
    *jordan almonds
    *a gift certificate for a massage
    *something sparkly
    *a good mix CD

    What do you wish was in your mailbox?
    Note: this idea came from a random blogpost recently that I can’t track down now. I’ll add the H/T when I figure out its origin…

  • let her step to the music

    I’ve had this image in my mind for days. You know when you were a kid when you’d get those cheap woven tubes as party favors–the ones where you put a finger in each end and pull and then your fingers were stuck. But if you pushed your fingers together then you could pull them out?

    Those toys are on my mind because I keep imagining time like one of those tubes. I no longer feel as though time is a measured, even march of the clock hands. Rather, time tends to expand and contract given the various pressures on my life. For example, it still hasn’t sunk in that the holidays are done and over with. Christmas break just flew by, all of my goals and intentions fading in the swirl of busy-ness. Likewise, this month is one day after another of full ‘to-do’ lists, of places to be, of many social obligations.

    But I am not complaining that time is flying too fast.

    What I am saying is how hard it is to keep track of reality when things are busy. I feel a bit like my life is pulled between the two fingers of time, stretched thin. In that tension I tend to focus on what is most pressing, moving from one task to another, methodically meeting deadlines. Time going so fast that last month and yesterday seem equally distant–my mind having difficulty parsing time accurately. So say someone asks what I did last weekend, I’m likely to reply with what I did a month ago, not realizing the difference.

    Even though I’m in the middle of a time warp, I continue blogging in fits and spurts. After some intense hours of academic writing or meetings or whatever, I spend a few moments spewing out a few thoughts on the page. It’s a bubble of space where time stands still. I am present. Just me and my keyboard. Not ever sure if it’s been an hour or a minute.

    If a woman does not keep pace with her companions,
    perhaps it is because she hears a different drummer.
    Let her step to the music which she hears,
    however measured or far away.
    ~ adapted from Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

  • open thine eyes


    begonia, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    “Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
    Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
    He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
    He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust.”
    ~Rabindranath Tagore

  • making progress

    This past few weeks I’ve been steadily working on all kinds of projects. But I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels and not really getting anything done. So to prove to myself that I have been working hard, here’s my grant/fellowship tally (my 12/19 tally):

    HU done 12/15
    WH done 1/2
    SC in progress–due 1/14
    PF done 1/7
    MH decided to wait until next year to apply

    I’ve also nearly finished the rough draft of my dissertation prospectus (due tomorrow). So I haven’t been a slacker. And I am getting things done. I just have to keep telling myself that…

    On a completely unrelated note: We had our bathroom light fixture fixed today. So no more fumbling with the odd lamp in the darkness (yay!). We also replaced the burnt-out bulbs in the fixtures above the sinks. What was a dark cave is now LIGHT. Light is good. Really. Happy light.

  • night owl (again)

    Night noises:

    The rain in the gutter on the other side of the wall from me that is alternately bubbling and then thudding. Odd sounds, indeed.

    John is snoring loudly. Rather unusual for him, actually. In a moment I will head into the bedroom and encourage him to roll over by tickling him with cold fingers and toes.

    My thumbs cracking. My joints are all funky and poppy because of the rain.

    Th gentle whirr of my dutiful junebug and the clack of my fingers on her keys.

    What are you hearing?

  • sleepless

    having a bit of insomnia. not a rare occurrence for me, but one that’s not so common anymore, either.

    i am a night owl, prowling around the house and poking around. all is quiet and i feel a kind of wicked delight in being awake while i know i really should be in bed. like those nights when i was a kid and i would stay up reading long beyond my bedtime…

    speaking of reading, here’s a 3 question literary quiz from Rafe Esquith. he says this quiz would do away with all of the standardized testing that plagues education today:

    1) Have you ever secretly read under your desk in school because the teacher was boring and you were dying to finish the book you were reading?

    2) Have you ever been scolded for reading at the dinner table?

    3) Have you ever read secretly under the covers after being told to go to bed?

    *My bonus question: Have you ever been teased by your parents for reading your books instead of touring the Eiffel Tower?

    so…did you pass or fail my little quiz? and tell me, what books are on your nightstand right now?

  • a high price


    alyssum, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    “I was born in ancient times at the end of the world in a patriarchal, Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist, although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me. I would soon find out that there was a high price to pay for my freedom and for questioning the patriarchy, but I was happy to pay it because for every blow that I received I was able to deliver two.”
    ~Isabel Allende

    In this vein, some of you may be interested in reading my SunstoneBlog post about attending a friend’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony and my “Leaving the Garden” story at MindOnFire.

  • a mantra for the new year…

    Tonight it’s raining bucketloads outside. More rain than we’ve had in years around here. No doubt houses will be falling off of cliffs soon, but for now I’m reveling in the sound of wind and water coming through my window screen…

    This evening I’ve been reading Rafe Esquith’s Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire. I’m thinking about his teaching philosophy, of the miracles that occur in his 5th grade classroom (if you haven’t heard of Rafe, do check out the youtube below). He challenges educators to teach with such passion that they wouldn’t even notice if their hair was on fire (as happened to him during a science experiment gone wrong). I don’t agree with all of Rafe’s methods, but I admire his passion and I aim to bring that to my classroom this upcoming quarter and year.

    As I read about Rafe I thought of another teacher, Ms. Frizzle, whose methods I admire. Her mantra is to “Take Chances, Make Mistakes, and Get Messy.” It’s a simple philosophy, but one worth emulating. IMO, life is too short to live with restraint and fear. Sometimes you’ve got to just be daring and take a leap into the uncomfortable, into the unknown. So this year I’ll look to the example of Rafe and Ms. Frizzle as I pursue my goals and dreams.