woods

I'm a bit stuck in the dissertation.

I am on page 52 of the second part, which is good.

The first bit was about 20 pages, so I still have around 130 to go.

The 52 pages are about settler memoirs of the Cariboo Chilcotin. They are, generally, crazy books. The writers are in love with their own heroics. They are frightened by dense stands of pine trees. They hate wolves like the Ahab hated Moby. By the 1970s, the writers grow pot and flout "convention;" meaning they hunt out of season, drive their pickups without a license and engage in, ahem, free love.

So while these are books set in "nature," they are not about nature. They are about self-adoration and settling - stealing - land.

I'm at the end of my chapter, and I need a doozy of a conclusion. I have it roughly worked out, but it needs to be tight and good.

Here's to wolves and dog's-hair pine forests and pickup trucks.

mmmm

Hi.

I'm posting again.

I just bought two pounds of mushrooms on sale.

Did you know what mushrooms grow in?

I've got to wash these guys quick, and then sautee them with white wine and garlic.

I'm blending them up into mushroom-barley soup.

Levon Sold Cartoon Balloons Until I Wrecked Everything

I'm re-writing my teaching philosophy.

A teaching philosophy is a short description of what I think college teaching should be, could be, and how I do it. All ideally, of course.

It's going alright. I'm resisting the urge to quote Spinoza. I'm also resisting championing unlearning, my new obsession. Rather tricky to be a teacher who thinks, really, we learn more hanging out with friends, making dinner, and laying around in shorts reading in darkened rooms.

I like my kid. I think he's funny and sweet.

I almost lost it a balloon man at the park yesterday.

Hugo: Ballooooonsss! Wheeeee! I LOVE balloooons!

Balloon man: scowl

Hugo: Hi!

Balloon man: Could you take him to the side? (flat palm point to his left asscheek) This is a private function.

Me: This is a public park, balloonman. And your vest with little stars is faded and very 1991, and my son is fucking awesome. So make him a balloon puppy or fight me right here, right now.

OK, What I actually said: (nothing)

I did scowl at him.

I also kicked woodchips at his balloon table. Like really kicked.

I also let Hugo poke the balloons a few more times.

I get all proprietorial about public parks. In a public, socialist way.

Does that make sense?

OK: I share all our toys, frisbees, balls and fun with other kids.

I let other reindeer join in our fun and games.

So when any douchey parent or balloonman-capitalist doesn't want to share balloons, toy excavators, or sparkly balls, I get all cranky.

This is my life.

One minute: grandiloquent teaching philosophy.

The next: adult tantrums in the playground

Open Comportment

OK champs. I'm back for another shot at blogging.

I'm a terrible blogger.

I have this ridiculous zero-sum fear that for every word I blog, that's one less word in my dissertation. As if I am hoarding them. As if, like my eggs, they are dying at a faster rate each year I age.

In any case.

We're all good here. I'm unemployed, which is turning out quite fine. Much cooking. A much cleaner house. More naps. Much more writing on the dissertation.

And the excitement of the research trip increases! I'm going to pine beetle territory to talk to people about living with the pine beetle. I'm going in with an open heart and mind. Whatever people want to talk about is cool with me. And when folks want to be silent, I'll attend to that too.

One my new favourite philosophers, Jane Bennett, writes that:

"If we think we already know what is out there, we will almost surely miss it."

She recommends that, in order to detect the flow of affect (which is basically feeling) between humans and non-humans, including objects like nails and clouds and pipe cleaners, a person should:

"suspend suspicion and adopt a more open comportment."

Bennett's book Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things sets up a premise that everything has intent, influence and movement, even inorganic stuff. She writes about how food affects bodies, how metals change and morph and become people and landscapes and animals. It's pretty genius stuff, and really simple too.

Anyhoo. I like Bennett. She makes the world magical for atheists.

Hungarian rhapsody

It's been so long since I've posted that my readership may have given up.

Entirely reasonable.

Hugo, now 2 and 1/4, weaned, chatty, and strong-willed, is ambivalent about daycare. He likes it, he hates me not being there. So he walks smiling towards the door, steps in, starts crying. Cries for hours.

No more daycare. Our collective hearts can't take it.

Instead we've hired our Mary Poppins, the world's loveliest, smiliest, sweetest nanny. She's Hungarian, and on the first visit to Hugo she said, "Hugo, do you like kisses?" To which he nodded and leaned in for a smooch. She plays with him. She reads to him. They giggle a lot.

She's a live-out nanny, which means a regular and highly paid babysitter. Which means nearly half my wage goes to her. Worth every penny.

And work is cool. Next term, in Readings in the narrative, we're reading Frankenstein, Monkey Beach, Chiwid and Seed Catalogue. By "we" I mean me and the keeners: I hope all three classes will be 100% keeners.

Or at least scared of my piercing pedagogical gaze. Pierce! Pierce! Read the books! Pierce!

Ah, epistemological violence. So 1980s.

Ok, I haven't posted in 2 months. Um.

I'm teaching 2 courses, which is great.

I like teaching. Teaching makes me anxious and happy, like all good things in my life.

Hugo learned how to talk this summer.

Sample sentences:

How about Mummy's shoes? (while putting on my maryjanes)

Mummy, come read truck book now! (truck book thumping my leg)

Mummy, ice cream? (and variations, such as : cookie? water? backyard? cartoons? traintracks?)

Mummy, kiss, now?

Are you OK Mummy? I'm OK. (more like one sentence)

MumDad go park play now please?

Mummy, nursing now please?

And he tells jokes.

Main joke involves pointing at anything (that is not an airplane), looking at me, and saying "Airplane!" He usually laughs between "air" and "plane," before my half of the joke, which is acting surprised and then giggling. I love the airplane joke.

My heart is breaking.

Vita's good, we are both good. He's so handsome. Um, and working hard and applying for a Master's in Counselling next year.

And we built a cedar backyard fence!!!! I like to sit outside and look at it. I smile at it.

Ciao. I am wayyy to busy. Papers to write, assignments to grade, lessons to plan, laundry to toss around. etc.

And Hugo is in gymnastics. He's into the balance beam, the climbing wall, and the trampoline. Yikes!

Natural Disaster

Hey, I started to play guitar again.

Hugo even asks me too : I have trained him well.

A good reason to procreate, for certain : manufacturing fans.

I mean FAN. As in singular.

Today has been odd : Natural Disaster Pants.

Um, Kelowna is all smoky and firy and burney and stuff.

Dangit.

We are the Emergency Prepared Family : we are prepared for H1N1, fire, earthquake, and the tedious torture of the movie version of Anne Michael's sad novel.

Um, I might need to flee Kelowna. With my child. And my husband.

And my computer.

Le sigh.

Natural Disasters.