the revolution will not be peer reviewed

woods

2010-06-17T17:26:00.001-07:00

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

2010-06-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-12-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-09-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-18T23:57:00.001-07:00

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.

blame the penguins

2009-07-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

For those suffering MJ sorrow,

for those suffering parental guilt and grief,

for those wondering whether it is worth $420 annually to cover up grey hair,

for those cursing institutionalized family structures,

for those wishing they weren't so mushy about the Wilco album,

for those who love kittens but hate cats,

for those who drop apples moist side down,

for those swallowed a cherry pit yesterday,

I advise this blog:

http://www.fupenguin.com/

xoxo

Moooo

2009-05-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

We went to Victoria.

I love that city.

But the colonial FORCE is overhwhelming. V and I sat in our hotel room, feeling striated by the statues, the cops, the brick, the "history."

V took a beautiful photo of a field of blue flowers in Beacon Hill park. Then today I was reading about how the Lekwungen, the First Nations people who live

d there, cultivated those fields as a staple food source. The flowers are camas.

The English got there and said (I'm not kidding): God is super amazing, because right here, in this wild wild place with all these hunters and gatherers, there are these great

fields of plants that our cows love to eat. It's like we were meant to show up. With our cows.

The Lekwungen liked the cows too. Especially after they shot and ate a few.

You can imagine the fallout.

Hugo rocked Victoria, as per this victorious photo. Take THAT, cow-lonialis

ts!

if i had a bell hooks

2009-04-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hugo loves hammers.

Also wheels, sirens, trains, dora and babies.

Oh, and breasts. Mostly mine, but if you are holding him and your t-shirt is on the loose side, he might just slide a pudgy hand down, looking into your eyes with a curious thirst.

Life with a toddler is hilarious, and we're getting happier, the three of us.

Although today I felt like shite for about three hours, I remedied it by taking Hugo to the downtown library, romping on the ladybug pillows, and picking out some MS and Adbuster's magazines to borrow. Which, because I owe 23$ (of which I only needed to pay 3 to get books out) and had $2.40 on me and the library doesn't take plastic, I snottily left on the library counter.

I softened my crabbiness with what I hoped was a beleaguered smile. And felt better for having expelled my doominess.

Librarians are, generally, really GOOD people. I mean, have you ever heard of a post-feminist librarian?

Speaking of post-feminism, I'm looking for texts for English 100. Pretty much, they suck. I found one I kind of like, called Word and Worlds. It has "controversial" essays. About capitalism, terrorism, consumerism. And "feminism:" in scare quotes because the excerpts are firmly post-feminist libertarian.

One is actually from REAL Women, the evil anti-woman group from Alberta.

And another is an excerpt from "The Rules."

What the hell???

I kind of think the author expects that readers would be appalled, which would make for good class debate. But I fear (with, I think, reason) that students would nod along with the readings, deciding that they too are "beyond" the need for feminism.

So I think I'll do another course pack. And also bell hooks' Feminism is For Everybody.

The class has to be non-fiction.

Our house is messy. My wardrobe is inadequate for a seasonal change and my endomorphing maternal body. My attempts to jog regularly are interrupted by exhaustion due to working late at night until my eyes close over student essays, and then waking to Hugo jumping on my gut saying, "hand hand hand hammer hammer hammer baby babeeeeeeeeee."

It's all good.

Ph.D. ABD and in mid-air!!!!

2009-03-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

So if you image-google "Ph.D. ABd," this is one of the awesome super awesome pictures you get.

Umm, the other images are stunningly unflattering head shots of professors languishing in part-time, no-benefits, temporary college teaching positions until they write their dissertations.

But this guy, the dude in the middle, in THE AIR FLYING, yeah, oh yeah, he too is PhD ABD.

In ninja awesomeness.

That's right folks.

I sat in a little room while five very smart people pummeled me with smart and tricky questions.

I sweated. I shook. I gave stupid, rambling, answers that let everyone know that I don't know what "close reading," "new criticism," or "deciduous" really mean. Which makes me a moron.

And I gave pithy examples of rhizomatic methodology. Which were cool.

Then those five asked me to leave the room while they discussed my work and my pass/fail grade. Then, after 15 minutes (during which time stopped and the stars began to implode), they asked me back in.

And then they said, "Congratulations! You passed!"

Which makes me able to jump up, kick, fly around, and be Ph.D. ABD ninja ready.

(I still have to write a 200 page dissertation.)

flashes of rhizomes of lines of flight!

2009-03-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

So Hugo and I flew to Edmonton.

It was cold and the wind was blowy and I bought The Watchmen there.

And I read it in between exams.

Exams were hard. My brain started to feel foggy. It was clanking, groaning.

Although at times I lit on points of creation : of ideas and words flashing together in synaptic rhizomes, maps of study-time.

And I passed.

Thank EFF.

In two weeks I go back for the Oral Examination. Sounds gross, hey?

Five profs sit around me (in a semicircle? as a linear panel? holding hands?) and ask me questions about what I wrote in my exams.

I'm not too worried.

As long as I'm rested and the brain stays clear.

I am much happier than I've been in a long time. Even today, whilst grumpily shopping at SuperStore, I was fairly happy. Even when BOTH my classes revealed that they hadn't done any of the VERY EASY and VERY SHORT reading assigned for today, I was happy.

2009-02-18T09:24:00.001-08:00

Fun Iran?

2009-02-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

OK, so about three capfuls of snow melted this week.

When this winter ends I'll get naked in the sun!

Well, maybe not. But I'll go for some sunny-soaking walks with my kid and maybe even the H-dot if I can wheedle him into it.

I read The Burma Chronicles.

Interesting, but lacking any kind of urgency. I mean, I know memoirs don't have any kind of plot necessarily. But some of the little stories are ridiculously mundane.

And exoticism : hmm? Any thoughts?

Against my desire to not buy more stuff not necessary to living, eating, breathing, I bought:

-2 Azar Nafisi books

-both persepolis books

I don't even have time to read them. Which means I'll read them and feel guilty about it.

I'm supposed to be reading about the history of environmentalism in BC. And about mean cracker settlers in northern BC. (I chose that adjective carefully : some settlers were better than others, but they all stole land and contributed to starving, jailing and decimating First Nations populations).

Iran seems funner to read about.

is thanking you and is a tad overwhelmed

2009-02-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the love and phone calls.

Having friends I can call and ask for love and help in tough times makes tough times liveable.

Really, I wasn't doing as well as I'd hoped I would in there.

Hospitals can be icky. And seeing my baby scared and unhappy was terrifying.

We are still shaken ffrom it.

Actually, I'm more anxious and sad. I can't shake the sadness. I need winter to end.

Pettmans : look carefulllllly into your mailbox this coming week!

I'm IN for the reading club.

Persepolis will be good because it has pictures.

Other than what I read for work and school, I only read very short books right now. Or books with pictures.

I'm studying for exams until March. After that, I'll have passed or failed my exams.

Either way, I'm taking a month break from reading anything without pictures in April.

Sometimes I narrate my life as if it were a series of Facebook statuses. (statii?)

Like this:

-is yearning for lost youth.

-is unseemly and tired.

- is nervous about teaching First Nations literature.

-cannot figure out whether "aboriginal" or "First Nations" is more appropriate.

- feels guilty.

- shuns her guilt.

- embraces her guilt.

- wants chocolate.

- has taken too many ibuprofen to digest properly.

- wants to sleep for a month.

- wants her youthful complexion back.

- is nostalgic, which she finds pathetic.

- does not know how she would survive without the geographically scattered and loving and reliable good friends she has.

xoxo

more later but for now just a vague note must do

2009-01-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

ok, so this past week was pretty bad.

at this point i don't want to to write the details.

sometimes, well, i think most of the time, writing makes things real. and i still need to repress this last week.

i'm not ready to think about what happened. and what could have happened.

i'll say this much : we are all OK, now. there are still four baskets of laundry to go. we collectively lost about 15 pounds.

we love our baby. we love our baby. we love our baby.

thanks to my friends who helped me through it.

pill

2009-01-22T20:05:00.000-08:00

1.I cut my finger on our decrepit fridge as the plastic crisper shattered in my hand.

2. I therefore cannot type very well.

3. I am on mastitis number 14.

4. I have now swallowed thousands of these little orange apo-cephalex anti-biotic pills for mastitis.

5. There seems to be no explanation for why I get it so often.

6. Because of the recession, my babysitter is in Saskatchewan.

6. I am watching the 11th Hour tonight. Better not be boring.

7. I ate a bag of Rip.L. Chips. Old Dutch.

8. I want to read Obama's book but am too cheap to buy it.

9. I love my job.

10. Hugo says "hug" and hugs himself.

11. I've had a paper called "To Become Beavers of Sorts" accepted for a peer-reviewed book.

12. Beavers. Heh heh.

loneliest, bestest, worstest job

2009-01-18T10:41:00.000-08:00

Parenting, surprisingly, is lonely work.

Nobody knows your kid and your family like you do.

Yourself, you're so far in it that you can barely see your way out of it.

So for all the books and workshops and friendly neighbours and "helpful" relatives and actually helpful relatives, it's still you and that plasticine-like newish person at 3 am, looking into each other's tired and similar eyes. Trying to love and care and be apart and be together.

I don't want Hugo to be like me. I want Hugo to be better than me.

I want Hugo to be happier, more peaceful, more resolute, less fearful, richer, and taller than me.

I want Hugo to find love more easily, to give love more easily.

I want Hugo, most of all, to be safe.

I'm thinking of the Admiral and BG, and especially the Admiral's last post.

There's not much anyone can really say to help - I mean, you know your family. I don't, really.

Parenting is so damn scary. And great.

PS. I love your kids.

badd speling, great life

2009-01-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

The first week of teaching is behind me.

I'm not sure I'm ready to let it slide by.

It was my one chance to convince the students that I am their comrade, their leader, their silent (and loud) guidance.

It was my one chance to facilitate an atmosphere of caring, determined co-operation (did I?)

It was my one chance to spell correctly on the chalkboard (I didn't).

Whether or not the first week meant anything, it was a rush. I like my job. I have a job!

Hugo is adjusting, I guess. I mean, I know he wishes I was with him every minute of every day.

And I don't just want Hugo to "turn out fine."

I want Hugo to be happy and excited and loving and loved every minute of the way.

As if turning into someone were all that mattered. I still don't know how I'll turn out.

We still co-sleep and Hugo still nurses. We are close. I still sing him to sleep and snuggle him awake. We still read stories and he still sits on my lap when he watches Dora (ps - he's scared of Swiper the Fox. should I cut out/back on Dora?). He still names my nose, eyes, ears, hair, and milk jugs a few times a day. Hugo is still my baby. And my darling, beautiful, chatty toddler.

no one knows

2009-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

I'm glad the year is changing.

Eight is a strange number. I know it is a chess number, and I like chess, but I am not really all that good at chess.

Still, anyone reading this who would like to play chess with me : I will be good enough to make you think. For a minute or two. Until you win. :)

This year, I've got a few goals.

1. Write my comprehensive exams.

2. Write my comprehensive exams without throwing up before, during, or after.

3. Pay off consumer debt.

4. Pay off consumer debt and not accumulate scads more.

Hugo is grand, and requires no goals on my part. He is all perfection, all dimples and chattiness and smiles and love. Even his farts are perfect. Even his tantrums are endearing.

And I'm starting a part-time job teaching first year English at the college. Perhaps the anticipation of talking with adults, sharing my research, and having colleagues, is all so pleasing that parenting seems, well, easier. Being at home 24/7 with a toddler, even if the toddler is a gem, makes me batty.

And speaking of batty: children's television. Hellbats. Wonderpets? Miffy the Bunny?

I'll end this little note with a quotation from one of my favourite thinkers, Mark Halsey, an environmental criminologist:

"No one knows ahead of time what will happen" (Halsey, 2006, 70).

flattery

2008-11-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

A former professor has flattered me into agreeing to write an 800 word review of a book about gender in the Middle East.
He called me "brilliant."
No, I am not getting paid to read the massive and probably depressing book or to write the very long review that will be published in an acdemic journal that many people love to read and criticize (hence forcing me to write in an agony of self-doubt).
Damnit.
Flattery. It works. Damnit.

And a pitch for an article for a magazine is taking wayyyyy to long to get past the editor. It's not even an accepted pitch and I've spent hours on it. Again, no money!!

I've really got to stop working for free. I work for free at home already (cooking, cleaning, etc).

I write this blog for LOVE. :) And to prove that Hugo can climb stairs.

Although some flattery would help too.

Oh, America, America.

2008-11-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

I know, you aren't surprised. I'm not sure why I was.
That I cried during Obama's speech on Tuesday. And that Vita and I both cried, sitting on the floor, Hugo asleep in my lap, the TV glowing like some messianic cloud.
That's what it felt like - revelationary. Hopefully Obama will also be revolutionary.

Unlike those dumbasses who voted against unmarried parents being able to adopt or foster.
And who denied gay people marriages or legal civil unions. And the even dumber asses (worse because they should know better) at the Globe and Mail who subtitled the story about it as a "family values" story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/freeheadlines/LAC/20081106/ELECTCALIFORNIA06/international/International

No way. Homophobia and meanness are not family values.
Homophobia and mean-spiritedness are how fear, self-doubt, fragility and emotional laziness manifest.

So, Americans are good for electing Obama.
And many of them are horrid for being legal homophobes.

2008-11-01T15:31:00.001-07:00

Who is the cutest baby tiger EVER?

gross

2008-10-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm writing.
There was a rock slide and I can't go and see my parents this weekend. God. I mean, if there were a God, it would be an irritating one.
And some stupid lady in the pool the other day asked if Hugo's name was "ethnic."
And I answered by rambling on about his name and other lame and not-lame baby names, nervously filling the politely racist air.
In said ramble I noted that "People are all over the Old Testament names these days. Which is so weird."
Stupid racist lady said "My son's name is Zachary. "
I said nothing.
"And I'm 38 weeks pregnant. It's a boy. We're naming it Elijah."
Just so you know, she was in the pool and I couldn't see her pregnant self.

Note to self : when someone says "ethnic," excuse myself for an emergency. Like peeing. Or looking at clouds.
Effers.
I don't want to be mean to pregnant people. Even if they deserve it. Did she deserve it? Am I a meanie?

And Hugo's going to be an awesome stripey tiger tomorrow. I bought his costume. Did not make it. Not at all. Yet another surprise of what kind of Momma I am. Cartoons : sure!!! Store bought costume : yahooo!!!!
At least he's back in cloth diapers. Close brush with the convenience of plastic. Ewww. Plastic. Grody gross grodessy grosssss plastic pee diapers.

Dishevelling Writerly Anxiety Hides Behind Ugly Doll

2008-10-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

And may I add that although, in yesterday's late-night-posted-photo, I look like a dishevelled ex-hippie-turned-pseudo-indie twentysomething,
I am actually a dishevelled, actual, PhD student turned mother.
And still a PhD student.

And a happy one. I went to the YM/YWCA last night to swim. I swam for half an hour. I sat in the steam room. I sat in the hot tub.
This was perfect.
Today I went back to the Y with Hugo for Baby Splash Time. Hugo loves the water and he isn't afraid at all. He wants to jump in - he wants to dive into the fountains - he wants to do a backstroke across the kid pool.

I know this is boring. Here's the thing : I think of a lot ineresting things to write, and I have odd interesting moments all day. And they are sometimes disturbing, or provocative, or curious. But I'm scared to write them down. Because then they are real - but they are real only in the way that I write about them. My written record of these important events becomes the thing : the thing is no longer itself. My writing is.
And my writing is not up to the task.

2008-10-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

hee hee.
photo booth IS hilarious!

Rampage of Cute

2008-10-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hello friends.
Hugo is asleep. Vita is asleep.
I'm awake and I'm not tired - yahooo!!!
Hugo and I went on a long walk - inspired by autumn, which is my favourite season, and by an interview in the weekend Globe and Mail by a doctor who prescribes things like "drink more water," "get one more hour of sleep a day," or "go for walks." It works. People get better!
And so I feel great after walking with Hugo for a few hours. I did some errands and we went to the playground at the Mission Creek greenway. It's one of my favourite playgrounds.
There are always tons of kids and parents and dogs there, and Hugo likes people and pet watching.
And I am, despitecertain troubles with my family, pretty happy. Life is alright. I have a lot of love, a lot of goodness around me.
I mean, stress is always there, right?
Unless we are lobotomized by TV, scrapbooking or money. Even then, CSI is scary, fancy paper is ridiculous and money : bah!
Hugo's hilarious, and I'm attaching two photos. I'm not that good at blog formatting, so who knows where the pictures will end up. But they are both autumn pictures. One is curious Hugo, sweet and standing up with his cousins. One is Hugo rampaging through our house. A rampage of cute.

Homework

2008-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

OK, Mikara gave us homework.
My happy list:
-snuggling wuth Hugo
-seeing Hugo happy
-going for long walks, especially in the fall and spring
-running
-reading great books
-getting published
-friends
-relaxing with Vita
-paying off debt
-eating lots of vegetables

I know, you may not believe me on the vegetable one. But really!! mmm. A big bowl of tasty veggies just makes me happy in my body and mind.
Getting published is probably one of the more difficult items on the list. Hugo is easy to make happy, relaxing is easy, eating veggies is easy, paying off debt is irritating but not complicated.
Friends are the best.
Wow. How could we get by without one another?

Scared : And this is a picture of one of Edmonton's Prettier Spots

2008-09-23T09:52:00.001-07:00

I started to write a long post complaining about what is bugging me.
But I think it made everything worse.
In any case, I'm sure I'll be cheerier by, say 10 pm. Bedtime.

I'm scared of school. Scared that it is too hard, that I am not smart enough, that I don't have enough time. That if I don't find a babysitter NOW I will be way too behind to ever catch up.
Gotta go.

mongolian trim

2008-09-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

School is back.
Um. I had a meeting with my supervisor.
She just got back from riding a wild horse with a wooden saddle across the Ghobi Desert.
I am not even kidding.
She was, she described, fairly humbled by the experience.
She said that "the transcendentalist" in her head was messed with : everything is land, horizon is endless, and now sitting at her desk writing emails is just plain odd.

I have bangs.
A haircut may not be a horse ride in Mongolia, but it's pretty damn exciting in my life.

In the photo I am showing you how fantastic I would look with a facelift.

Appreciate or Else

2008-08-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

The summer is over. I know because our summer guest has left.
She got, the day before leaving, "traveller's fever." She told me this so as to explain her sudden diet of dry bread, garlic broth and strange cups of tea.
She put chunks of ginger, two mint tea bags, and sugar cubes into one of those big Starbucks coffee cups. The soupbowl sized cups. And then drank it, cold, all day. The tea looked greasy and green. Apparently that is also how she looked at the airport. Eva doesn't like travelling.
I'm talking about Eva, the mother of the father of my child. My mother-in-law, but I don't really like that title. It's too accurate. And Eva, or as I call her in the privacy of my mind, "She Who Communicates in Mysterious Mutterings," is never an accurate communicator.
She did do a lot of housework. The house SHONE. Hugo ate off the floor a few times and it was cleaner than the table is now that she's gone.
And she loves her grandson. She spent a solid month playing with him, trying to teach him Czech, fretting about his bumps, farts, rashes, poops, naps. I'm glad he has so much love.
And there is nothing like really getting to know your in-laws to really get to know your spouse. Holy Insight.
I appreciate Vita a lot.
And I love my baby.

Drool to Be Happy

2008-08-20T22:30:00.001-07:00

Every time I think I am losing any academic competence, something good happens.
I mean, something like a scholarship or a nice email from a smart and scary professor happens. This time around something even better happened - I finally understood Deleuze.
Deleuze is a dead French philosopher. Ah, Gilles Deleuze.
Gil, I call him, for short.
I've been reading and writing about Gil for 4 years now.
I think that everything I wrote about Gil, up to this past week, was wrong.

Last week I was laying bed, Hugo drooling to sleep on my tummy, and as I drifted to sleep myself I thought, "Damnit, Gilles Deleuze might just be total nonsense. Maybe it is all baloney he just made up and nobody really understands it. Maybe Gil is the snuffalufagus of post-post-structuralism."
And at that blessed (I mean blessed in a strictly immanent, atheist sense) it kicked in.
I saw in my sleepy mind an image of a herd of elk.
And I recalled Gil's passage about nomadism and deterritorialization.
And the elk, smelling a bit like horses and a lot like dust, deterritorialized as they ran, as they moved, loud and warm, as one.
Which means I finally figured it out.

In no way does this mean I can explain it to anyone yet.
Wait another 3 years for that.

Inexplicably happy, I am now writing about it all. About pine beetles, lodgepole pines, the Chilcotin, MacBlo, moose, elk, trappers, loggers, tourists and trains.

And Hugo is still drooling. Happily.

bestestest

2008-08-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

We went to Enderby to see M and A and A and M's Dad and significant other.
It was really really purty there.
The river is cool and wide and fresh, and the trees were tall and leafy and shady.
Hugo was happy the entire time and he slept the whole way there and back.
Mucho happiness.

Friends are the bestest.

kakakakamamamamdadadada

2008-08-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, time flitters by and my baby gets cuter while I get more shrivelled looking.
"It's all worth it! I had 32 years of solipsism! Who needs to look good? Who needs to ever wear jewellery again? Who needs to remember to wear deodorant?"
Except for the last item, I'm cool with the changes parenting brings.
Hugo is so damn cool. Last week I let him play with a potato. He yelled his super-happy yell and hoisted that sucker all around the house.
And he tries out new expressions every day. Today he was closing his eyes - squinting them - when he smiled. Kind of like a fake-smile with a laugh.
One day last week he said two new words in one day, both at the right time for the words to actually mean what they mean. Both were Czech, and both words now mean either water, poo, duplo, dollie, boob, bunny, book or parent. I think, basically, Hugo has moved from Chomsky's structuralist notion of language aquisition to a more Derridean deconstruction of supposed static semantics. Boy genius.
Plus he poops in his potty.

Love Bug

2008-06-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Hugo is asleep. OK, I should let you know that "Hugo is Asleep" is an exclamation. Always.

This past week it has taken between 2 and 3 hours to get Hugo from the sleepy eye-rubbing stage to the totally asleep in bed stage. By which time I am exhausted and cranky and cry just looking at the dishes and laundry waiting for me. Well, I don't really cry. I just swear a lot. At the dishes.

Tonight it went much better - it's apparently all about having a routine! Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a routine-friendly person. Nor is Vita, Hugo's Daddy. We regularly forget what day it is, how old we are, and when we were married.
But we both agree that this, indeed, is worth a routine : Hugo sleeping means Mummy sleeping means Daddy sleeping means a lot more happiness and a lot less crabbiness.

Today was day two of the new routine: dinner in the high chair, short playtime, bath or shower, little massage and pjs, then a few books and a cuddle with blanky, and then bedtime.

Hugo is coming around to it. He is pretty darn smart, so I'm sure he'll figure this one out.

This is a photo of Hugo with Asa. Hugo's got a lot of great friends - Asa, Noah, Rasa, Abi, and Keighley are his main pals these days. Such a social, curious, determined fellow. A chubby, exuberant love bug.

happy yell!

2008-04-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

This is actually Hugo's third activist t-shirt. The first two had more singular messages; he has moved on to slightly ironic messages now that he is 6 months old.

As with the Pettman household, Sick has moved in.
And there are only two of us to coddle Sick! Yet . . .

i start to get better, and then some todddler wipes snot on hugo at playgroup and then hugo sneezes and then i sneeze and then he is sick and then he is better and then i am sick and then . . . i have been healthy for approximately 5 days since hugo's birth.

But I have never been happier!!

hugo has his Fifth tooth coming in! i can't believe it. a mouthful of sharp little chiclets.

and with my home delivered Settlers of Catan came the world's cutest stuffed owl.

thanks. :). hugo really really likes it. he grabs the stubby wings, stares at its owly eyes and yells.
happy yells!!!

snax

2008-02-08T20:22:00.001-08:00

i know, i'm a posting fiend.

my brain is all fuzzy so i can't quite deal with my school work. i can post though!!

i have hyperthyroiditis.

the good part is that basically, anything i screw up from now on, for the rest of my life, i'm going to blame on my thyroid . . .

convenient!!

and it explains why i currently eat more than any other human i know, have lost weight for the past month, my hair is falling out, my brain is fuzzy, and i get all dizzy.

it's easy to treat, so that's awesome.

kind of really good to know what is going on. i'll know more next week, too, once i see a specialist. the health care here is pretty darn good!!!

ok, i 'm off to snack. i snack a lot.

what i meant to say last post was this.

2008-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

I haven't had time to write posts, but I did need to get the cutest pictures ever up for your pleasure.
And it's hard to know what to write about.
Perhaps:
1. Weather - total ass. the weather is the ass of ass. minus 28 and then a mean prairie windchill.
2. Health - mine, not so good. going to the doc tomorrow to find out what is happening. hopefully she just hands me some horse sized vitamins and tells me to get some more sleep. hah.
3. Love - I love my baby. Seriously, he is so cool. He laughs, he babbles, he LOVES it when i play guitar for him. He found his knees recently.
4. Travel - I'm flying to Kelowna in a few weeks, so if anyone is around there, please come and hang out with me and le bebe. And then in the summer Hugo's Czech granny is coming out for an entire month. She doesn't speak any English, so it'll be tons o' fun hanging out on the beach and at Orchard Park Mall. We'll be in Kelowna.
5. Reading - about the Cariboo Chilcotin.

I like my peeps and miss you all. :)

Go Hugo!

2008-02-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hugo, yes, is oddly co-ordinated beyond belief in this picture.
He's awesome.

ouch

2008-01-27T15:10:00.000-08:00

Teething.

Poor poor baby!! Two dagger-like teeth digging up into his gums.

I dream of sleep

2008-01-19T15:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, the first thing I'm going to write about here is a bit gross.

I thought that since I haven't been pregnant for four months, things woul dbe normal-ish with the bod.

But now I am enjoying post-partum hair loss.

Kind of ewww.

My hair comes out in creepy piles.

Like a runaway pet.

Apparently it'll stop falling out soon.

Hugo is awesome, and he's pretty close to crawling. I mean, I really don' t know, never having done this before . . . but he does scrunhc his knees up under his legs and then push like crazy.

It turns out I'm going to stay in school - hurray! My other option was living with my parents, so, yeah, it's good.

My supervisor is cool. She asked me if I have much time for work, and I said, well, about an hour.

An hour a week.

She seemed fine with me working at this pace, and I'm glad she is proving to be a feminist in action, not just words.

I'm tired. Will I ever get enough sleep?

I was thinking of what I would do if I could do anything I wanted for, say, four hours.

I would sleep.

Everything is Better with Baby

2008-01-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Baby and I had a great time in B.C.

I especially liked: playing board games; hanging out at the house of M, K, A, and A or M.A.K.A., I like to call them; looking at the blue blue sky of the cariboo; eating My Mum's mincemeat tarts (we call them mincemeat farts); visiting my awesome Uncle in Kelowna at his palatial house with huge leather furniture, Persian carpets and enough food and movies to wait out the apocalypse; having a lovely visit with Hugo's Daddy and seeing them bond lots and fall in love with each ; other, and generally seeing Hugo see B.C.

Everything is better with baby.

Even Alberta isn't so bad.

We're going to a "parenting" class tomorrow. Yes, I am suspicious. Yes, I signed up for it of my volition. Perhaps just to cruelly mock it, perhaps to eagerly seek a Mum friend, perhaps in hopes of free things. Perhaps to learn something.

I will report back.

Here is what Hugo can do now:

smile, laugh, kick, google, coo, perform Deleuzian rhizomatic analysis, almost roll over, and hold his head up.

He rules.

babies, trees, food!!!

2007-12-06T06:17:00.000-08:00

Dudes, I am coming to BC!!! Hurray!!

Not that I don't love Edmonton.

Cops flailing around tasers, strip malls on every corner, house-sized trucks ready to run over my car with hippy bumper stickers (courtesy of my parents), and two solid weeks of minus 20 plus a hardcore prairie windchill.

Hey, the people are nice.

I'm super excited to see everyone in BC. I have to admit I get a bit lonely out here. Hugo learns new smiles and sounds and sometimes I am the only persn to admire it. And I have been really thinking about maybe going for a walk with another grownup for, say, 3o minutes. And it would be nice to eat with other people. I mean, I eat in FRONT of Hugo, and he eventually eats what I eat.

Are we what we eat? Is he me?

My Christmas expectations are: regain all baby weight, watch Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special, stare at sparkly Christmas tree, see my sisters, my youngest brother, my niece and nephew, Mikara and Chris and Alora and Ava.

When I get back I hafta go back to skool . . . . . sigh.

Big Big Baby

2007-11-30T09:04:00.000-08:00

OK, this post is just pure braggery.

Braggacio.

Braggeyo, in Alora vernacular.

Hugo, ahem, is 5.9 kg!

Thats 9 pounds for you imperialists out there.

At 10 weeks, this puts him in the 75-90 percentile.

Oh yeah, he is heavy, and long, and chubby and awesome.

the sky and love

2007-11-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

So, three days ago I went to my very first 0 to 5 (and parents of) drop in playgroup.

I was pretty shy when I got there.

There was: a big posh community centre room. Hardwood floors and big beautiful windows.

On offer:

Instant coffee, for 25 cents.

Packaged cookies, for free.

Attending:

about 8 Mums, one Dad, and a bunch of kids.

It was interesting to see how other folks parent, to see how kids are at different ages, and to talk to other Mums about how the first year of parenting is.

Number one topic on that issue: sleep. One lovely woman, all smiles, so smilingly told me that her little 11 month old girl has been waking up EVERY 15 MINUTES for the past 4 months. All night. Every quarter hour.

She was so calm - though perhaps well medicated?

There were a few other stories of post-partum breakdowns.

But all the scary, exhausting, confused stories were bracketed by love.

Every woman said that she loved her baby, that her baby was perfect, that the baby was amazing and that she didn't mind not being able to sleep/think/speak/emote normally for months on end. And that she would, in a minute, do it all over again.

It's crazy - for whom else would we put up with constant sleep deprivation, intense emotional demands, and the occasional accidental injury (like birth)?

And, and this is also intense, to do it well, being a parent, that is, you also have to expect that your child will take you for granted. Like, if your kid was every adequately, fully grateful for all you went through, he or she would grow up to be obsessed with their parent in a pretty freaky way.

They kind of have to just expect that you will be there, 24/7, in any situation. Like air, or the ground, or the sky.

Or something: Zincofax Toxicity Produces Insanity in New Mother

2007-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

So, Hugo, aka Pumpkin, Hugito, or Mummy's little Chavista, has fallen in love.

With a Panda.

It's all about trans-humanism these days, right? Since it's a stuffed panda on his mobile above his changing table, it might be "stuffed trans-human cyborgism."

He smiles and googles at the Panda a lot. A lot. Like, he's smiled at me exactly 4 times and at the panda about 400. Yesterday I was wearing a black parka and a black toque. My underslept pallid face gleamed down at Hugo in his carseat and he cracked a nice big smile, followed by an exclamatory fart.

So I was thinking of covering my face with Zincofax, smearing eyeliner around my eyes, and wearing my black toque permanently.

You know, to stimulate my baby's brain so that he grows up to be, um, a genius zoologist.

Or something.

Not that cute

2007-06-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

I am so keen to get to BC.

Last night as I was trying to sleep the smell of fire kept on waking me up.

Just my neighbours having friendly backyard fires.

In the city.

Fires and beer and trucks with Support Our Troops and Jesus Fish bumper stickers. In the city. Without the benefit of fresh lakes, pine forests, dragonflies or sunsets.

Between flashbacks to the Okanagan Mountain Fire, the sweet lullaby of sirens, revving engines and the dark buzz of heavy bodied black flies smashing into the ceiling, it was not fun going to sleep.

Not to mention that if I roll onto my left side I wake up dizzy and out of breath.

Sigh.

Not that I expect I'll be getting enough sleep when this baby is on the other side of my body.

But at least I'll have someone cuter than me to look at when I stumble around at 3:45 am.

I'm not super cute right now. Especially today.

2007-06-18T08:11:00.001-07:00

And here is another link to the Alberta Federation of Labour website with a complete list of Molson products to boycott:

http://www.afl.org/news/default.cfm?newsId=444

Solidarity in other beer and in wine!

2007-06-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

Boycott Molson products!

I did a radio story on the Molson workers here who are striking.

They were really positive, friendly folk, who are striking because the Molson Management is cutting wages for all new hires by seven bucks an hour.

Management assumed that the previously hired workers, many who are getting ready to retire, wouldn't care about the new hires. They even offered increases to the existing workers, like a bribe.

Hah!!

Solidarity!

The workers said they wouldn't compromise their solidarity and wouldn't feel right working next to people doing exactly the same job for 7 bucks an hour less.

They are asking people to boycott Molson products - Molson, Coors, Rickard's Red, Heineken and Corona - until they are off strike.

Molson and Coors are one company, and there are rumours that it will be bought up by Miller, an even bigger American conglomerate. Miller would be a heck of a lot less interested if they were worried about the labour dispute . . .

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/wkrs-j05.shtml

Thought I'd let my blog friends know about this.

When my radio spots are uploaded I'll add a link.

hey kids i'm back

2007-06-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

it's been a really long time since i posted.

a lot has happened. whew.

um. i'm super pregnant now.

i've been readin gabout marxism. and agrarian socialism.

did you know that in 1960 when Saskatchewan's awesome NDP government introduced medicare, the doctors went on strike? nice one guys.

we're advocating for rent controls in Alberta, and the sad cry of "But the poor landlords! What if they went out of business?" is heard from the Mall to the Legislature.

what a sad world indeed, with no landlords . . . . just available housing . . .wait a sec, doesn't that sound suspicously like the UNDHR call for Universal Housing?

Nah.

My Brain is Like a Chinook in an Ice Cream Shop

2006-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

OK kids, so I've got exactly 14 days to produce 65 pages of genius writing.
On:
1. Palestinian men and Gender performance
2. Ethnobotany, BC Land Claims and the colonial archive
3. uh, some kind of link between Heidegger's Nazi days and Margaret Somerville.

Somerville thinks gay folks are some kind of error, and for this kind of obviously complex thinking, she was given an honourary PhD at York and gave this year's CBC Massey Lectures.
So I thought I'd try and take her out.

Sigh.

Anyone out there read The Walrus? This month has an AWESOME picture-article about what people around the world eat every week.
The people that eat lots of vegetables and fish are the hottest.
Those who eat the most chips and bacon are the least so.

So the question really is: Do sexy people live longer?

oh friends

2006-11-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

"oh friends, there is no friend."

of course there are friends.
but Derrida was writing about Greek guys talking to other old Greek guys about friendship.

I wish I weren't an absent friend: that is what the Greek guys meant. That you want to be a great enough friend that you are missed. Bu then you are not there, so what kinda friend are you?

I'd rather not be absent.

I don't love Edmonton yet.

Vacuous, cold, expensive, fancy.

So far, the best thing about Alberta is that it's next to B.C.

Oh, and the mall is better than the Louvre with the Taj Mahal inside it.

Pleasure and Defenestration

2006-10-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

It's these pleasures, I am sure, that will keep the revolution fomenting (if not revolting).
What I mean is that while I am, perhaps excessively, putting in long long days (like 9 and 10 hour days, and this week and last week were 6 day weeks) there are these little pleasures that, perhaps because the rest of the time I mostly read, talk, or sit in front of a computer, become sensually pleasing:

1. In the cafeteria of the U of A Education building there are 8 food vending machine-robots. I call them robots because they do the work of food preparation and selection for you. Recently I enjoyed an instant Nescafe "frothed coffee". It was kind of buttery coloured and frothy on top, and then about as sweet as, say, a citrus fruit (not as sweet as an apple), and rather bitter. Mmm. The "small" size was quite sufficient and was $1.00.
I also had my favourite ice cream treat, that is, the plain rectangular Ice Cream Sandwich. I fondly recall these from the Czech Republic as one of the only things that tasted exactly the same as it does in Canada, except that, charmingly, in the C.R. it is called a "Nanuk" (as in Nanook), therefore allowing one to consume the other in a literal and definitely sweet and refreshing manner.

2. A Certain French Librarian. I am not attracted to him. I do, though, really enjoy asking him questions and engaging him. He is kind of awkward and seems to have this repressed energy, so that when I ask him for help he kind of jumps out of his spot behind the reference desk. He's married. He has an awesome kind of rural Qubecois accent and, this is unreal, he advised me about microfiche use. Microfiche? WTF? I haven't looked at a microfiche since Horse Lake Elementary. Awesomely, the U of A has creepy stuff like records of colonial governance meetings in BC from the late 1800s on microfiche. And then I can print or save the microfiche images/info. Kind of an uncannily enjoyable thing for me: nostalgia, french guy in tie and dress shirt, dirt on colonialism, and my home, ALL IN ONE.

So comrades, so far the Revolution is going all right.
Still not dating, and I've decided that is perhaps for the best.
I mean, who wants to be all "Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't call you today," in the middle of serious marching, rioting, and defenestration.
Defenestration is the AWESOMEST revolutionary practice of all. Though not very pacifist.
I would like to practice defenestration on Klein.
Before the fucker gets away to the Fraser Insitutute (can you believe he is getting a job at a "think tank"? I mean, there is this pile of gravel by my building that I think would be good there too. So, yeah, go for it Fraser Insitute. Morons.)

Fight Like A Viking (But share the Booty)

2006-10-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Oh Dear.

It seems I am back in school again.

Why, oh why am I still putting up my hand to say something I hope will be incisive enough to surprise yet expected enough to get approval?

And I live in Alberta.
Well, at least I have a fun new hobbie: Protests! Activism!

Over my over-educated corpse will this country turn into a right-wing, dumb-headed, narrow-thinkin' land of lame!