quelle erqsome...

in which i explain my whereabouts

So, I've been working in-house at my old publishers again, two days a week, for nearly a month and I cannot believe how it's affected my ability to do things. For one thing, actually having spare cash to go out -- awesome! For another, total exhaustion and a subsequent flake out on the sofa when I get home -- awful.

I've been cycling the 25 minutes from my house to Vauxhall, an exhilarating way to start the day if there ever was one, then taking the train out to the office where I induce forced brain collapse for 7 hours. Then I take the train back to Vauxhall and cycle sweatily home again. I actually rather enjoy the way this new routine makes me treasure the time I have for my research, but it's knackering.

I fully appreciate that anyone who actually works in an office FIVE DAYS a week will now either be flipping me the bird or laughing at me for being such a wuss. But as well as working in-house, I've also started teaching at uni again (little first years for critical theory, two seminar groups, loving it) and have started working with a new supervisor while my old one is on sabbatical, which means I REALLY have to work now. I'm glad for the change, really though, as I was getting too complacent with my old supervisor.

I've not had any time to sew at all for three weeks, which SUCKS. However, my knitting time has been completely amped up. The train journey affords me at least 40 minutes every day just for knitting, which is lovely. When I get home in the evening, I usually try to get some reading done but for the most part I flop in front of the TV and knit some more. I've watched more utter drivel in the last month than I have in the last five years.

My radio silence over the last few months has been driven by two key factors, both of which I've wanted to keep largely to myself but for very different reasons.

The first is I'm betrothed! I turned 30 and was whisked away by my dearheart to Paris, where, while breakfasting on the south bank of the Seine, Matthew clutched my hand nervously as he got down on one knee, produced a diamond-bedecked nose stud and asked me to marry him. I laughed and cried and said yes and it was wonderful. I LOVE being engaged, having an Engagement Freckle is giddingly lovely, but I cannot wait to get married. Marriage is going to be fucking awesome. Matthew is the most wonderful person I have ever known and it is my privilege to be part of his life. While marriage has never been something we've particularly discussed, knowing we're going to do it seems to have made everything brighter, more vivid and more pertinent.

The second thing also brought us closer, but for less awesome reasons. In August I miscarried. It was very early-stage, I couldn't have been more than about three weeks along, and quite unplanned; other than the faintest of faint pink lines on the home pregnancy test, the miscarriage was the one clear confirmation I was pregnant in the first place. Although I can rationally commend my body for rejecting a collection of unhealthy cells, I really wish it had done so less dramatically. Most early-stage miscarriages go practically unnoticed, with none of the symptoms attached. I, on the other hand, had the ginormous boobs, the strange pulling and stretching of my body as it got its womb together, the sudden waves of faintness, the hypersensitivity to smells and taste, the inability to concentrate on anything for more than three minutes... And all of that lingered with sick cruelty for the next six weeks (damn you, nature!). Regardless, it sucks but good things have come out of it: for the ten days between my beginning to think I might be pregnant and the actual miscarriage we both got super excited, which bodes well for when it does happen.

In any case, I've been mostly blogging over at Loumms, but as I've started teaching again and working in-house again, and want to start delving into my personal life again, I'll be here more often. For real this time.

it's on the list

1. Vegan Lemon-Coconut Coffee Cake. Mmmmmm.

2. Hungry, hungry bees! I was up until 3 this morning tweeking the layout and giving it a rough tech edit. It still needs a final edit and I need to replace the pictures with ones taken during whatever brief period of sunshine the London skies will allow, but the pattern is up!

3. 'Lista. This morning I received the BEST PARCEL EVER with Girl Scout Thin Mints and a hand-knit by 'Lista hat and a gorgeous cake of yarn from an alpaca with my name and all kinds of other goodies. The post lady was very nearly deafened by my squees when I saw the return address and the kittens spent most of the morning with their ears ringing. 'Lista, you made my month!

4. 40 student portfolios, ripe for marking. I'm actually quite looking forward to it, but I need a nap first. I am KNACKERED!

yummy

I am currently perfumed with a somewhat rank combination of slugs, garlic, laundry detergent and lavender. This is because I was de-aphiding my garden this morning with my garlic mister and spotted a very small slug nestled in the shade of my zucchini (as if I don't have enough crawly creepies to deal with!) and as one very small slug will usually lead to many fat slugs if left unchecked, I hastened to get rid of it.

Then I lifted and hefted and peered under every pot I have to make sure there weren't any others. I found one, even smaller. I flicked both into the road where they were promptly smooshed by the Domestic Refuse Collectors (hurrah, the tax pound at work!).

Then I misted some more and suddenly realised that I was running late for invigilation training and had to run off unshowered. Gross!

This afternoon was spent lugging umpteen sodden sheets and cushion covers up to the laundrette to be tumble dried at the highest heat known to laundry.

To reward myself, I bought yet another lavender plant. (I think all this lavender might explain my recent onset of narcolepsy. I have been knackered lately.) But now, as I'm getting ready to go out,* I think perhaps rewarding myself with a shower might be a better idea. Oh, to be clean! What a very novel idea.

* ETA: going out to see The Woe Betides at Club Fandango, so excited! I actually haven't seen them play in ages, so really looking forward to it, as well as it being my birthday drinks night, hurrah!

the emmminars

Yesterday was so full of the Awesome. My seminars were great -- the second one especially broke out into a fascinating half-hour debate in which I said practically nothing and just sat back and listened to their storm of ideas. Poetry, ideology and figurative language have never had it so good. Then my office hours turned into a mini-tutorial as a half dozen of them crammed into my borrowed space in the department to bounce essay topics and develop their arguments together, then they all waited around to have a one-on-one with me afterwards. In the end I think I saw about a dozen students, which is record breaking and lovely.

Best of all were two moments that confirmed just how much I love doing this.

The first one came after I spent five minutes trying not to compound 'engineering' and 'genius' into 'engenius' in my description of Seamus Heaney's poetic skillz. The student I was with grinned after I apologised for the nth time and said, 'That's all right, we call your seminars "The Emmminars".'

The second came with my last student of the day. He had shown me all the books he was using as research material and we'd gone over his plan and agreed he was on to something potentially rather fantastic and as he was packing up his things he said, 'You know, I really appreciate all the comments you made on my last essay. It wasn't vague or obscure. I know exactly what I have to do to improve it, so thanks.' I blushed and said I was glad he got something out of it, and he said, 'This is my favourite class. It's got substance; I like that we actually get a chance to dig into a novel and see what's there.'

Then he picked up his bag and bade me a pleasant weekend.

I think if he'd have gone on I would have ended up doing something wildly inappropriate, 'cos dude! How cool is that?

a first

One of my students from the essay clinics I help run burst into my office today to share the news: she got a first!

It was her first essay back, the first one she handed in this year. I'm so proud of her. Of all my students, she is one of a scant handful that works so hard and put in so much time and so much effort into everything. She's been coming in for advisory sessions once a week since the start of term, simply because she wants to know that what she hands in exemplifies the very best of her ability. And she got a first! I can't stop beaming!

4 a.m.

I can't sleep. This seems to be turning into a tri-weekly ritual. I conk out, knackered, at half 9 and then find myself staring at the ceiling from about 2 onwards until eventually I get up because telling myself to go to sleep isn't working. Rather, that voice gets drowned out by all the things I have to do and all those teeny flubs made throughout the day which loom up in the dark.

One of my students -- one of my brightest students -- came in to talk to me today about his essays and we got talking about Frankenstein and he got all excited about queer theory applications to Frankenstein and I got all excited about the possibilities of the creature being representative of Frankenstein's fear of his own sexuality and we both got all excited about Frankenstein cutting out the uterus from reproduction. There was much arm flailing and hyperventilating from all the excitement, and then I referred to transvestitism when I meant transgendered and tried to back-pedal because I really did mean transgendered and got all in a muddle. And he just looked at me with a mixture of pity and incredulous and gently tried to change the subject to save me from further embarrassment. But I wouldn't let him, because I meant transgendered! And there was jargon and blah and it was awful. Moments like those make me wish I came with a stop function.

So that's keeping me awake. As is the thought of making project bags. (Because in my head such things can run side by side.) I've got this fantastic thick, soft linen and some very funky prints and I'm thinking I might have to put the two together, with buttons and drawstrings and pockets, oh my!

Three things on my mind at this very minute:

1. I need to water my plants.
2. I wish Mozzie would stop farting.
3. The radiator in my office works and it's warm, hurrah!

Right. I got up to do things as well as blather. There's a list. It needs to be checked.

a bit of lovely

If I manage to have sausage and spiced parsnip mash for dinner tonight, I will have had a perfect day.

The lecture today was awesome -- the lecturer was not only an expert (as they all are in this series) but passionate and excited about his subject, which made it riveting -- which meant that the seminars thereafter were awesome. Narrative theory became the source of heated discussion, and flailing hands abounded (not just mine) as they enthused over Vladmir Propp and the hero in Frankenstein and Bluebeard and then examined the narrative potential born within cover art, titles and prologues. Seminars like these leave me somewhat breathless. It's almost delicious watching them engage with so much energy to an area of theory that so easily could have been dismissed as boring beyond recognition.

The freelance project I'm working on is unusually interesting -- you can hear the author in his words, it's like reading an audio file. He's an old bird, very anecdotal and a bit meandering, but just so infused with wisdom and wit. It's an almost grandfatherly read. I feel like I ought to be listening to it while resting my head against his knee. We should be sitting in a worn log cabin on a lake somewhere, gazing out at a stark Canadian landscape, all rocks and dark trees, me knitting as he talks on.

My yarn from Laura (squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!) wasn't in the post, and that was disappointing, but running through Ravelry I came upon JaneII's post from yesterday where she links to a pumpkin scone recipe that just looks out of this world, and it's vegan! No de-eggifying for me, hurrah! I'm going to try it with acorn squash instead of pumpkin (because I have no pumpkin) and see how it turns out. I'm wagering pretty bloody fantastic. In any case, this recipe sent me on a search for other pumpkiny nummies and I found one for cranberry-pumpkin bread and another for pumpkin cider bread, which sound brilliant.

I know I promised myself to hold off on the sweets till Christmas (or thereabouts), but I kind of figure as pumpkins are vegetables, it won't count, right? And with cranberries (fruit!) added it's a mound of couscous away from being healthy.

hazards

Yesterday evening I discovered the true hazard of living in the same neighbourhood as the institution you teach at.

It is not getting pratfaced off too much wine and falling over your students in hail of slurred salutations. It is not the risk of running to the post office in a pair of torn pyjama bottoms with yesterdays moustache streaked across your cheeks. It isn't even engaging in blistering public rows with your dearheart and stalking off in stabby rage.

No.

It is getting caught running around Sainsbury's taking pictures of your latest knitting project with a vast selection of wine bottles, slightly dizzy with excitement, too much caffeine and not enough food, and, using a baguette as a pointer, telling your students that if they really are going to get the whole fish, they'd better eat the eyes because THEY'RE WATCHING YOU.

countdown to the weekend

1. I wonder if there's a Golden Spurtle for cupcakers. I haven't found one, but if there isn't perhaps this is something we should think of investing in. 
2. My parents have spent the last who-knows-how-long bumming about England, dossing in people's spare rooms and generally being idle wasters. Which is why it came as a bit of a surprise to learn today that they've bought not one but two flats -- one here, on in Canada. Well done or a bit indulgent? The jury's still out.
3. I conned my students into a hour of examining Buffy and Dr No in the context of Frankenstein and they went away thinking they've learned something about intertextuality. Heehee! (Kyliemac, you would have been proud.)
4. Matthew invited you to "14 Hour @ The Griffin'" on Saturday, October 25 at 8:00pm.
   
   Event: 14 Hour @ The Griffin'
         "Featuring The Woe Betides, Tim Clare, Niall Spooner-Harvey, Guy J. Jackson, Andrew Copeman & Graham Bendel"
   What: Performance
   Host: 14 Hour
   Start Time: Saturday, October 25 at 8:00pm
   End Time: Saturday, October 25 at 11:30pm
   Where: The Griffin
   
   
5. More afternoons should be spent playing fantasy lecture series and then sketching out the actual logistics of making the fantasy a reality. Lacan might argue that's something we might want to avoid, but I think it's lovely.
6. I keep sneezing, but it shouldn't last into tomorrow or Sunday. I hope it won't in any case. It would be a bit trying if it continues.

ask me again in a month's time

Mozzie and I have made up. At least, enough for her to want to decorate my interview skirt with a map of London out of cat hair. That way I'll always know where I am.

'Interview skirt'? Yes.

Last week I sent an email to my supervisor requesting that the next time he sees me deluding myself into thinking I'm Superwoman, to please stop me. He solemnly promised and I submerged myself once more in a tangle of freelancing and research material. This week I have thrown all caution to the wind and accepted an interview that might get me more teaching hours.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

I'm thinking the same thing.

But I'm also thinking that if I have more teaching hours I won't have to do as much freelancing and less freelancing means more research. Because I've spent the last three weeks staring longingly at my poor neglected spy novels wishing rent would just pay itself already. Teaching pays better, is more interesting and keeps throwing inspiration at me.

Regardless, it's only an interview. I haven't been offered anything yet. And if I am, I can, theoretically, turn it down as soon as I see sense.

As of last week, I might be in love with one set of seminar groups and delighting in an affair with the other. My Monday sessions are varied and inquisitive, but it's still fairly early on. My Friday lot are so funny -- I think I mentioned that the second one was very quiet in the first week. No more. I was right, they really were just waiting to have something to say before saying it. They've hardly been able to shut up since, it's lovely. And they're not just talkative, they're considered and engaged. I did a little experiment by asking how we might be able to investigate Roland Barthes's 'Death of the Author' in the context of Frankenstein itself (i.e. Victor and the monster, not Shelley and the novel). A bit of a risky move given the week before I was seriously considering the possibility I might have to explain what a metaphor is, but I wanted to see to what extent they would allow themselves to enter the text. They outstripped my every expectation. We finished our hour having decided that Victor dies the moment the monster is brought to life, because on a metatextual level that is the moment the monster begins to read himself. From there we went on to discuss nature/nurture, conceptions of monstrous and the horrors of the irretrievable.

Although I still find it impossible to remain unbiased (though I do tell them when I am being unbiased, so I suppose that's a start) and I'm far too excitable and I frequently launch into what I consider 'easy' explanations which splat all over the ceiling, this teaching business is fun.