New Blog Alert

I've got a new blog: drfoureyes.blogspot.com and a new name (dr four eyes).

The new blog is bare bones right now, but I'm going to start posting over at the new place while I futz around with all the details.

Come check it out and spread the word.

Aloha again

Chica and I are back from Hawaii!

The good news: we're well rested and had a great time. Stories and photos to come over the course of the weekend as I catch up on blogging.

The bad news: we returned home to a nasty, nasty house. The Man tracked litter all. over. the. house. To give you an idea: normally, we take our shoes off first thing, but we both have ours on still because the floors are covered. Gross. I think I've resolved that, in the future, I'm hiring cat sitters for any trip longer than a week; I'd gladly pay not to return to this mess.

So after a quick peek at blogs, I'm going to vacuum, then Chica will mop.

Oh, I forgot: one nice thing to return to: mail addressed to me as Dr. ABD (A couple of friends sent congratulation cards via mail). How fun is that! Also: my diploma and official transcript. Yay.

Aloha

Last post before we go!

Chance are, I won't be posting from Hawaii. I tried to figure out the email blogging, but it didn't work and I didn't have time to pursue it further. So this will be a dormant blog for a while, but feel free to amuse yourselves by a) continuing to help me come up with a new name for this blog, and/or b) leaving questions for me to answer when I get back and am too jet lagged to think of post topics on my own.

Happy holidays, ya'll!

4 freakin 40

Craziness: the stupid airport shuttle is picking us up at 4:40 am--AM--for a flight that leaves at 7:40 am, even though we only live, at best, 40 minutes away from the airport. Why? Because that's airport shuttle policy: pick people up 3 hours before departure, no matter what.

Gah.

Well, Chica is (supposed to be) researching cab options, so we may end up canceling the shuttle.

In any case, lots to do before the shuttle arrives. Yeah, here's the list, because I know you care:

• bring in the trash can
  
• shovel and salt the front walk
  
• print out cat sitting notes, gather keys
  
• do orientation for the new sitters
  
• pack
  
• shower and all that jazz
  
• go back out in the cold to get cash from the ATM What good is your bank ATM if it never has any freakin money in it so you end up having to pay fees at another bank. No good, I tell you.
• pay credit card bill
  
• put plants in kitchen for watering
  
• buy gifts online (such a slacker)
  
• make Chica's gift It's kinda lame, but Chica will love it anyway.

One chore I already/finally did was go to the used bookstore for vacation books. Here's what I got:

• Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. This is from Shrinky's list, which I love. Lots of heavy stuff on the list that I will read (or already have read, in some cases). But since this is vacation, I opted for something that seemed a little less brutal. (Hey, Shrinky, you ever notice how many of the books on your list have the word "brutal" in them? OK, maybe not a lot...but it did seem so.)
  
• Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. This I actually pulled from What Now's discussion of academic murder mysteries. Academics with lethal weapons! Fun!
  
• Fearles Jones by Walter Mosley. This I bought because my Dissertation Director told me to. It's a little weird, but he's sort of abandoned our academic field and become really invested in mystery and detective fiction. I haven't probed to deeply about this, but I get the sense that he's also writing or has written his own novels. I'm dying to know if they're published, but I haven't been able to work up the nerve to ask him yet. Anyway, we were talking about vacation reading at dinner this weekend, and when I said I'd probably pick up a detective novel, he said, quite authoritatively, to buy anything by Walter Mosley. So I did, if for no other reason that to see why he thinks this guy is the best.
  
• And I also have the Dave Eggers book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, that I bought a couple of weeks ago.

That seems about right: four books for a three week trip. Oh wait: 5. I forgot that I'm still reading that book about the Mississippi flood of 1927. Plus I'm taking at least one work book if for no other reason than to feel virtuous, even if I never open it.

Hmm, five might be a bit much...I'll have to think about that one.

Rename this blog

The consensus seems to be that I need to rename my blog and myself. I'm all for that, but I'm feeling a bit low in the inspiration department.

So far, the suggestions have been:

• Chica made me do it
  
• Anticlimax
  
• Buzzkill
  
• Incredible Shrinking Head

I kinda like the first one, but Chica was less than enthused. Plus, frankly, I don't want to bolster her already dangerous sense of omnipotence. She already thinks she's in charge, so I spend a lot of time quietly working to undermine her authority around the house.

The second two are more in reference to my current state of mind; I'd like to go with something that's a little more...timeless.

The last one, well, I'm afraid I'll get a lot of disappointed psychiatrists coming round here if I use that name.

So, I'm still in search of a name. What are the criteria? Well, I want something that I won't have to change in another 6 months. Chica wants me to pick something witty.

I did think of one name, but Chica frowned upon it (not witty, she said). But, as I said, I work at undermining her sense of authority all the time, so I'll toss out my idea and see what you think.

See, all this talk (and thinking, on my part) about the process of transitioning from ABD to Dr reminded me of a favorite line from a poem by Amy Clampitt. I'll indulge myself by typing in the poem for you all:

Dancers Exercising

Frame within frame, the evolving conversation
is dancelike, as though two could play
at improvising snowflakes'
six-feather-vaned evanescence,
no two ever alike. All process
and no arrival: the happier we are,
the less there is for memory to talk hold of,
or--memory being so largely a predilection
for the exceptional--come to a halt
in front of. But finding, one evening
on a street not quite familiar,
inside a gated
November-sodden garden, a building
of uncertain provenance,
peering into whose vestibule we were
arrested--a frame within a frame,
a lozenge of impeccable clarity--
by the reflection, no, not
of our two selves, but of
dancers exercising in a mirror,
at the center
of that clarity, what we saw
was not stillness
but movement: the perfection
of memory consisting, it would seem,
in the never-to-be-completed.
We saw them mirroring themselves,
never guessing the vestibule
that defined them, frame within frame,
contained two other mirrors.

The line I like--all process/and no arrival--seems to suit my frame of mind. Chica thinks it's depressing, but I think it's kind of liberating: we're always in the process of becoming and un-becoming, even as we accomplish goals or reach milestones. For instance, my current transition: I'm becoming a Dr, un-becoming a PhD candidate. Yes, on paper, I'm now a Dr, but it's going to take a while for me to process that and to integrate it into my sense of self, having spent the last 8+ years thinking of myself as a grad student, and the last 4+ years as an ABD grad student.

Clearly, I'm writing this as a justification for using that line as the basis for a blog name, but I'm still open to other suggestions. In fact, I may spend some time flipping through poetry books for inspiration...after Hawaii, though.

In the meantime, keep the suggestions coming!

Buzzkill

I started to write this as a comment to this post, but then it started getting so long that I decided to make it its own post.

Here's the deal: Scrivner is not liking all the talk about post-dissertation/post-graduation anticlimactic buzzkill. In his latest post, he wrote:

I'm serious. Y'all better stop with this whole anticlimactic talk. When I hand in my dissertation, I will be suffused with light, a heavenly host will descend from the clouds and drape me with the finest silks, and the secrets of the entire universe will spill open before me. My entire life will make perfect sense. Peace and joy will follow me all the rest of my days.

And I'm not listening to a word you people say otherwise.

Scrivner, no worries: I'm sure your scenario will play out exactly as you describe it. Seriously, I was all happy, la la la a month or so ago, so it hasn't been all buzzkill for me. And I had a great experience at graduation: it was celebratory and reflective and gave me a chance to honor this experience, my accomplishment, and those who helped me get here.

The more I think about it, I don't think anticlimax is really the right word to describe what I'm feeling, to the extent that it connotes a permenant and irrevocable turn for the worse.

It's more that I feel drained and spent. I think that it's just that I'm finally starting to let go of the YEARS of stress and disengaging with a project that I've been so focused on for so many months. It's not a bad thing, really, it's just what it is.

Also, keep in mind that I'm at the end of an emotionally exhausting semester: the first few months on any new job are stressful, and I have the added joy of working at a college run by crazy people. So that factor is probably contributing to my feeling spent.

So, here's my plan: In two days, I'm taking off for Hawaii, where I'm going to have a fabulous, restful, and rejuvinating vacation. Then I'll come home, and Chica and I are going to throw a huge party to celebrate. And I'm going to have business cards made with the "Dr." in front of my name so that I can get used to people calling me Dr.

Something to stress out about later

Remember that time, last month, when I virtually shut down my blog because I applied for a faculty job and freaked out? Well, I've recently heard from the search committee chair that they'd like me to come in for an interview in January. Cool, huh.

I am happy about this--it's good to know that the only job I applied for this year is interested--but, honestly, I'm too exhausted and spent to be really REALLY excited. I'll be excited in January.

B* beat me to it

I swear, I was going to post this last night, but now that B* has photoblogged her new glasses, I think I must.

Here are the old glasses, for which I still harbor fond feelings. I may even get new lenses for these frames, just to have options:

Let me tell you the story of these glasses: This is the first pair of funky librarian glasses that I've owned, mainly because it's hard to find glasses like this that fit my face. When I found this pair, I was debating between the black and the brown. The sales guy liked the brown better, but he doomed his cause when, while attempting to make his case, he noted that the black pair made me look like a librarian. That totally sealed the deal in my mind.

Here are the new glasses, which I now totally heart:

And let me say a few things about these new glasses. First, they're red. Cool. Second, they don't have feet (in my world, feet on glasses = nose pads; the glasses store people mock me when I refer to nose pads as "feet," but I could care less). This is significant because I have a small nose and have always believed that I needed feet on my glasses. Over the past few years, I have looked longingly at the feetless, plastic-framed glasses, sometimes trying a few pair on only to despair when they promptly fell off my face. But, in this latest go round, I discovered a few pair of feetless glasses that stay on my face. Miracle!

Finally, just in case you missed it, you can get a sense of just how strong my prescription is by looking at how my face seemes to squeeze in where my glasses cover it. OK, don't know if I'm explaining this correctly, but check it out: you can see the true width of my face above and below my glasses, but the part covered by the lenses looks noticeably narrower (especially the second pic). That's one of the things I don't like about having to wear glasses all the time now: the strength of my prescription ends up making my eyes look smaller than they already are.

And here are the new sunglasses, which were the reason I went to the eye store in the first place (I lost my old sunglasses in NOLA and had to get new ones before the Hawaii trip):

These, I don't have too much to say about. They work, and I won't end up squinting my way around Hawaii.

Ought vs Am

What I ought to be doing:

• cleaning the litter box
• finding cat sitters two sets of neighbors are taking care of The Man, meaning I don't have to pay for a pet sitter!
• reading Chica's grad school application essay
• bringing the trash can in from the alleyto tell the truth, Chica did this...but then I helped bring in firewood, so that's ok
• unpacking and doing laundry
• shopping for nephews' presents
• making a packing list for Hawaii
• doing the dishes

What I am doing:

• updating my blogroll
• refreshing Bloglines every five minute to see what you all are writing about

So most of this happened tonight instead of last night, but who cares. It's done. Here's the general list of what needs to happen between now and Friday:

• laundry
• cleaning the house (bathroom, kitchen, floors, decluttering, etc)
• packing
• booking the airport shuttle for Friday a.m.
• printing various tickets and confirmation sheets
• buying books (have the list compiled, just need to get to the bookstore)
• prep info and keys for cat sitters
• give orientation to the new cat sitter
• shop for two nephews; mail gifts
• put mail service on hold

That's all I can think of for now...but that's enough. And that doesn't even include work stuff or going to get prepped for the trial.