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.