Life is an infinite jest.

Getting Ready for Christmas, Starring Kaylee Cat!

2009-12-20T22:24:40Z

Here at the Garret, we're beginning our festive Christmas season. Slapping a Santa hat on Mr. Growfen Spiel (the dragon puppet) and calling it a night on the decorating was how I originally anticipated the extent of my holiday spirit. Yes, yes, chastise me if you will. But then, it started snowing about a week back, and I hummed a few songs from this awesome Star Wars Christmas CD that I need to rip when I go back to the parents' abode on Wednesday, and I had a few nights of a snuggly cat purring through the night, and...well, you know what? Let's do this Christmas thing. Don't get me wrong. The extent of my decorating is still just putting a Santa hat on a dragon puppet. However, Kaylee Cat has been roaming central Pennsylvania and having all sorts of wonderful, wintry adventures.

First of all, she met Santa Claus! Apparently, Santa wears lots of eye liner, needs a new belt, and holds cats like Storm Troopers hold their guns (and if Ol' Saint Nick aims like a Storm Trooper, Kaylee's laser neko eyes ain't gonna hit anything; there'll be more destruction than Cyclops on a bender). At the North Pole, it apparently precipitates industrial-sized snowflakes and Christmas decorations, and Santa has frozen, frosted olive branches jutting from his head like antlers. Kaylee trekked through the arctic tundras to meet Santa, and although she was willing to listen to people telling her to be a good kitty, she just wanted to get home to a nice saucer of milk.

Also, Kaylee Cat is getting in the holiday spirit with a festive kitty sweater! Okay, actually...she was not happy about this one, but we'll be going to 1505 W. Antis St. later this week, and that house is frig-id. I mean, friggin' cold. Last Christmas, I hung out with a penguin, a polar bear, and a coal stoker while my parents drank four pots of coffee and still managed to sleep for sixteen hours. And on Thanksgiving, Kaylee walked through the house, all a-shudder. So we went to SuperPetz, and I let her pick out her favorite from the rack of kitty sweaters. (I'm just glad that she didn't pick the rhinestone-studded vest or the leather pet bomber jacket.) Then we met a few shelter cats that were in the store and up for adoption, and I have to say that I'm very proud of Kaylee; she was shy, but she behaved herself and didn't growl or swat at any of the other cats. She also rubbed noses with a cat named "Michele" (yup, with one "l") before promptly huffing and reminding Michele that apparently I am the property of only one kitty. Anywho, after a while, we drove back to the Garret, where Kaylee tried on her new kitty sweater dress!

(Photo is a bit blurry, but she was *finally* sitting halfway still....)

So those are the recent winter escapades here at the Garret. What do you all think of Kaylee's winter adventures and her dashing fashion taste? And from Kaylee Cat and myself, we hope you all have an enchanting Christmas!

Recent Goings On in the Life of the Red Mage

2009-12-14T02:02:43Z

So last thing first...The Penguin in the Machine (penguininthemachine.blogspot.com/) updates at 12:01 a.m. with a book review of Philip Roth's most recent book, The Humbling.

I've written twenty-four headnotes today for the second edition of On Writing Short Stories, created a giant pdf of doom, traveled through icy slushes of death in order to have literary-type meetings atop mountain fortresses, realized my tyres suck in awful weather, decided that the British spelling "tyre" is way cooler than our spelling "tire," done some laundry, envied my cat, and generally worn myself out only one day after being terribly and unpleasantly ill.

Oh, and I submitted a paper to a conference and discovered that, since my paper was accepted, I'll be going to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February. I'll be talking about E.M. Forster and landscape. Happy times!

But I'm off to sleep, and then to do some revisions to the "Paris" manuscript, then off to work at the Press and general Monday Mayhem (which includes yet another trip down to Selinsgrove, oy!).

The Joys of Academic Publishing

2009-12-02T15:25:42Z

A really quick one, just to say that sometimes I adore academia and especially the world of literature studies. If it weren't for my job at the press, when else would I get to type sentences from book dust jackets that say things--and in a serious voice--such as "He is currently working on a Hispanic literary history of syphilis."

No foolin'. Academic publishing is sweet.

A Cute Short Film, starring everbody's favorite skinny Scottish guy

2009-11-18T14:34:59Z

By which I mean David Tennant. I wish I meant me. Le sigh.

Anywho, in response to the creepiness of what chiara_suzuka has recently posted about (see the article to which she posted here), I have decided to cure all of you by posting a short film that's one of the cutest little love stories I've ever seen. And there's no dialogue! No words, and I love it! So if you're worried about people snogging their DSes in the future, at least there are happy realistic things to balance it out. Ladies and...wait, you're all ladies. So, ladies, I present...Mr. David Tennant in "Traffic Warden." Totally safe for work. =^.^=

oy to the vey

2009-11-12T15:52:59Z

Right now, I'm trying to get a customs form online to work so that I can send out some books internationally for the press. And the United States Postal Service is in the process of trying to inform me that nobody is named "Patrick Henry" (hey USPS, I am named Patrick Henry) and that the publishing manager's first name is not a legal name. I think the postal service is out to get me.

And I'm sad because Kaylee has a weird lump on her hip the size of a marble, and there's another one right beside that lump that's a bit smaller, about the size of a bb. I felt the first bump on Monday, and I know it wasn't there before we were at the vet on the 30th for Kaylee's shots. And the other one, the bb-sized one, I just found this morning. So I'm going to call the vet tomorrow morning because I'm worried about my girl. She's such a pretty little kitty!

And she's going to be lonely because today is Thursday...bleargh...I'm at the Press from 9 to noon, print a bunch of stuff off really quickly, class from 1 to 4, Press ed board meeting from 4 to 6, run home to feed Kaylee (she's such a pretty little kitty!), run back to campus for class from 7 to 10.

Yup. USPS still says I don't have a real name. *fail.*

Missing the "write" stuff

2009-11-02T21:47:44Z

Finally back to doing some writing (skipping thesis workshop, huzzah, because I am auditing that class now and can do stuff like that! =^.^=). Finally over some manner of plague that debilitated me last week and prevented me from getting any writing done then (in addition to other fun events that it prevented me from attending...). Over the past hour and forty-five, I've touched up ten pages, shifted a few things around, tightened a few other things, and then wrote a paragraph. Then. I hit a wall.

This character of mine is stuck in a family's library. It's 1910, it's still early in the morning, I'm trying to use the second episode of this novella to reflect on the family and "the way things were" while also showing clues building up to the big reveal (it's a sort of detective story, after all, and Miss Christine Henderson--the daughter of the family and our protagonist and avid reader--is the one whose POV pieces the entire story together). Dear Christine, please, please, please tell me how you want to get out of this bloody library.

Oy. It's good to be back at the grind, but I'm itching to get this thing moving again. I've considered skipping and writing parts III and IV first, but this is the kind of issue that I need to get resolved before I can go on. Otherwise? It'll keep bothering me and I won't be able to do the other stuff. So...I need to get Christine out of the library and interacting with people. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Meme from a Book

2009-10-21T14:23:11Z

Well, time for me to play copycat and borrow the meme from everybody's LJs!

The meme:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal...
5. ...along with these instructions.

"He held out his copybook."
-Ulysses, by James Joyce

Umm...I think that's somewhat appropriate, actually. Weird.

Styles upon Styles

2009-10-13T16:42:30Z

I've made a few "upgrades" to the ol' wardrobe. I can't exactly call them upgrades sans quotation marks because the garments are technically vintage. Yeah, yeah, I know. Cool, huh? Anywho, reasons for the purchases are: My standard tweed jacket has unfortunately been retired for reasons of numerous holes, lots of threadbare areas, and disintegrating lining. (It's actually been out of commission for over a year, leaving me in jacket limbo.) My overcoat, that tacky ol' green military-type thing, has no lining and doesn't actually count as a winter coat (as has been pointed out to me by one or two ladies who may/may not comment on this) because it doesn't succeed in actually adding to my warmth in anyway. Below the cut are these two purchases: A replacement to old tweedy (complete w/ a double-vent, though you can't see it in the pictures) made of real Harris Tweed from Scotland and a brown cashmere/wool overcoat with an actual lining (this one from Merry Ol' England, though I think a few of you will understand quite well why I *had* to get this particular overcoat!).

I have many more pictures of each of these from the online postings (so ask if you want to see more), but I should have these by Thursday or Friday, according to the number for PackageStalker.exe.

"New" Tweed Jacket

So I met the Doctor during a major crisis, and he asked me to hold his coat....

Is that so?

2009-09-29T23:11:02Z

Random Query #37

Why is it that people think I'm being conceited when I say that all of my friends are beautiful women?

Don't they realize I wouldn't lie about that? I mean, seriously.

if on a rainy night an LJ post

2009-09-23T00:58:52Z

Hey all, I wanted to thank you all for your comments on the bit from Novella #3. It's...been a long week, so I'll get to commenting on specific comments very soon, and I'll leave it up for a little longer as per a request from aloveaffair to look at it. But yeah, comments soon, and I do appreciate the help. I miss having good, strong, supportive, yet critical workshops. It may be hard to believe through clouds of disillusionment and angst, but...we had a pretty good thing going at SU. It's actually a damned good program.

Also, there may be some posts soon, perchance reviewing an iPod touch (Kaylee-approved) and an... amazonkindleelectronicportablereadingdevice. Not, fyi, Kaylee approved. Out of its box for all of fifteen minutes, and Kaylee Cat had attempted to destroy it five times. (Potential YouTube video: The effects of cat teeth on electronics) Until then, here are your previews: The iPod touch=the most impressive and interconnected thing since chiara_suzuka's borderline encyclopaedic (yes, I'm using the archaic spelling of encyclopaedia, isn't it cool?) knowledge of film trivia. ereader-thingamajig=the book is actually a much superior technology. Debating on video reviews or ye-olde-texte-type-review. All for my thesis, actually, but that's a long story.

Oy vey, I need to get the hell out of this place. That, or take up alcoholism again. Long stor(ies). Not exactly inclined to go into all of it. But I might need to drive away for Friday night or Saturday morning or something.

going to read, then sleep.

Rodents of Unusual Size

2009-09-07T00:24:43Z

Don't think they exist either? Well, the BBC just proved me wrong. Wicked wrong. Papua New Guinea is apparently the Fire Swamp.

news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8210000/8210394.stm

Thoughts?

Don't tell Wonder Woman what to wear.

2009-09-03T00:36:05Z

I took a quick YouTube/Interwebs break, and this was on "recommended videos" on my YouTube page. It was funny enough that I thought I'd share. It's only about a minute and a half, so even those on dial-up *coughcough chiara_suzuka coughcough* should be able to load it up, load it up.

This might also be one of the few times that I find The Flash amusing. Also, I can sympathize with Wonder Woman not because of one-piece, star-spangled, strapless bathing suits. Today was kilt day, and a few yuppies looked confusedly at me and several even muttered, "What's he wearing?"

In completely unrelated news, G.I.Joe cooked a dinner for Bill Gates. (G.I.Joe works part time at two restaurants, an Outback and an elite-ish steak house in Seattle. I think you can guess where it happened, and I suppose something like this was bound to happen eventually with Daniel's clientele.)

First Day of Classes

2009-08-27T01:08:55Z

So it's been a long day. This semester, my TAing assignment is all for one prof, which means I'm still doing the work at the press but might actually do class-related stuff aside from photocopying. Huzzah! Today consisted mostly of working at the press from around 9 a.m. until the start of the class I'll be TAing for at 2, and then I wrote about six pages and read five stories, several of which were longish, two of which were completely unrelated to anything I'm doing for class. Always a nice reprieve.

The three stories that I read for class are Joyce's "The Sisters," "Eveline," and "The Dead." That's for the first of my two classes tomorrow, the Joyce seminar. And I still have to type up the 15 pages for the fiction workshop tomorrow night; everybody has to present 15 pages as a "ticket" into the class. Since I'm starting to get tired of my current novellas, I'm starting a new project, for which I've recently hammered out the requisite 15 pages (on the typewriter, obviously). I'm doing some weird stuff that I'm not sure you can actually do in fiction. Which means, of course, that I immediately believe that there must be some way of doing it. Of course, this project will be tightly under wraps.

Also, within in the next month, look for either an email or LJ post that's a solicitation for readers of a ms of three novellas and possibly an essay (still have to think that one out).

Time for me to go hurt my fingers in an attempt to learn guitar chords and prove how much of a lamer I am by calling it a night at 9.30.

Hobbyhorse.

2009-08-13T02:47:10Z

I've taken the initiative to look into a few new hobbies. Otherwise, I'll spend the next year doing nothing but being a hermetic introvert who reads books, shuns daylight, and has philosophical conversations with a cat.

Read as: In addition to the $300 of schoolbooks/B&N preorders I just made, I've purchased a tennis racquet (plan: hit the hell out of something when frustrated) and a guitar (plan: I was musical once, but a trumpet is way too loud for an apartment building), so that I have two things I can attempt to learn to do as a pastime here in Lburg. I'll keep you all posted as things progress.

Of course, the dream would be the bright day in the future when I can post some indie-sounding and very witty acoustic guitar song about tennis, existential angst, the cuteness of fluffy kitties, and the as-of-yet-unrealized future importance of typewriters once the technology sides with the zombies in the Great Global Zombie Uprising of 2012 (also known as "Great GZU 2012").

Any of you have any hobbies you're trying to start up?

And the Lightning Strikes in the Day!

2009-08-10T00:22:52Z

So, at roughly 3:27 EST (GMT -5.00), the Garret was surrounded on all sides by a raging tempest, the likes of which had hid the sun and left the sky a roiling black with a cavalry of clouds with rains slashing like sabres and rumbles of thunder. Kaylee Neko hid beneath the futon. And when she wasn't hiding, I was either carrying her through the apartment or wearing a real, live cat as a stool around my neck. They squirm a little, just to let you know, when they're that frightened. And at roughly 3:27 EST (GMT -5.00), the power went bzzzzzzt right while I was reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (I have about 300 pages left of that 1200 page monstrosity. Fabulous book, though).

Couldn't see to do anything. So around 7ish, I went to Sheetz to get a sammich. On my way back, I saw all sorts of fallen branches, though the greatest sight was a stop sign that had been uprooted from the ground. Cool enough for you? No? Now, I wish I (a) wasn't driving and (b) had a digital camera so that I could have a taken a picture of said stop sign, because where it landed in the soil, the red octagon was in the ground and its metal pole was sticking straight up toward the clouds. The stop sign did a backflip!

Oh, and there were a few broken-limbed trees in the parking area, and a few limbs that fell where I used to park the Deathtrap. Too bad I couldn't have seen that Grey Bastard wrecked.... :-\

Upon seeing these things and finding that the power had returned after my jaunt to Sheetz, I thought the responsible thing, at 7:15 EST (GMT -5.00) would be to go to the nearest Internets and whine about it. Then, I decided to quick on YouTube quickly first, and saw that there's this really corny show that has one season up on YouTube. It's called Forever Knight. It's about an 800-year-old vampire who wants to "atone for his sins" so he become a police detective in Toronto, Canuckland. I'm not kidding. I might post a video or something (along with a fuller description) while I'm at work tomorrow. And I did my first-ever StalkerBook note today. But for the mean time, I hope you all have dreams of backflipping stop signs. I know I will.

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes, LJ Exploded

2009-07-31T14:07:06Z

So what happens? My Internet dies (for about a week! How bloody lame is that?), then I end up doing cross-Pennsyltuckabama roadtrips, the likes of which make me think, "I'm never going to finish writing my book!," and in the process LJ explodes with all sorts of happenings.

That, and I actually had work to do at work while nobody else was here. (Read as: I rolled a one on my "doin' my own work at work!" roll. A botch so epic that I produced work that shouldn't have been coming in.)

So in response, it seems that all y'all are leading quite exciting lives as of late. Mine isn't exciting (ever), so we won't really talk about that here. Or maybe we will. Later.

But I'm back. Ish. Backish. Maybe you'll see more of me, now that I have rejuvenated the power of the Obelisk of the Internets and also procured one of those midget laptops, so that I can all the time be taking the Internets with me. No, I'll still make fun of the yuppy girls who use them to take notes in writing workshops (read as: Who the hell takes notes during a writing workshop?) while they sip out of their [I didn't know they made them this small] 200-ml Nalgene bottles that they keep in their purses next to their creepity-looking Chihuahuas. I made up the Chihuahua part, though it wouldn't surprise me if that were true. But now, I don't need to beat fratties away from a library computer just to check email on days on which I don't need Elaine's overwhelming MacBook-style awesomeness.

Three in a row, go for one more...

2009-07-19T18:22:48Z

Go for it, connect four! Oh, and I will. Three days of posts in a row, and tomorrow will make four.

So you don't have to answer the Voltron Ultimate Battle Royale if you don't want to. Honestly, it's just a decoy. I should be posting my long response with pictures, humor, and possibly lead-ins to other...*ahem* stories today, but I'm really just tired. So it'll happen tomorrow. When I'm not exhausted.

But seriously, Voltron. Tell your friends. And in 2011, there's supposed to be a Voltron movie. I lie not.

Diversion Tactics: Caturday Battle Royale, Featuring Robot Lions

2009-07-18T22:54:44Z

Second day of diversion tactics from Bailey Rock. And since it's Caturday, what better way to distract all y'all than with some good old-fashioned Ultimate Battle Royale with one giant robot versus another? There are YouTube clips, each about a minute in length. Now, play fair and don't vote based just on nostalgia, or I won't count your vote. ^_^

Voltron, Defender of the Universe, versus the Megazord, underpowered supermecha that can be operated only with too many martial arts gestures and that fat kid from the back of your second-grade classroom reading the instruction manual during recess! Some coolness points, though, need to be distributed to Voltron: Voltron came long before Power Rangers; Voltron's Blazing Sword cuts through everything while the Megazord's plastic "power sword" can't even cut through other action figures; Voltron was based off of an anime and had to be watered down for American audiences; and Chuck Joe Hank owned a Voltron figure set (which was actually really easy to assemble) until I broke it. Oops. What we have below are the show descriptions, then videos of the transformations.

VOLTRON, Defender of the Universe.
(There are several Voltrons, so to be clear, this is Lion Force Voltron.)
"From days of long ago, from unchartered regions of the universe, comes a legend, the legend of Voltron, defender of the Universe. A mighty robot, loved by good feared by evil. As Voltron's legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On planet earth a galaxy alliance was formed. Together with the good planets of the solar system, they maintained peace throughout out the universe. Until a horrible menace threatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed once more..... This is the story of the super force of space explorers specially trained and sent by the alliance to bring back Voltron, defender of the universe."
Transformation--

See more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron

MEGAZORD, from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
Do you really need the background for this one? Didn't think so. Anywho, I lied. The following clip is about minute forty-five, because one transformation apparently isn't enough--

See more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Morphin_Power_Rangers

The five robot lions, or the five robot dinosaurs? Viewers, it's all up to you!

Diversion Tactics: Concept Art

2009-07-17T23:21:11Z

So, chiara_suzuka suggested that I go back and read the *ahem* stories that appeared on a recent otakumeep post. I snorked chocolate milk.

I'm currently at Bailey Rock, and I'll be housesitting until Sunday afternoon, so until I'm back at my Garret and can compose my super-ultra-death/life-defying epic response of legend, I'll have two days of DIVERSION TACTICS! to keep all of you on your toes.

And what better way to start than a mythic piece of concept art hanging from the very walls of the Mountain Fortress?

I'm sure those of you who were here last summer remember this piece of art.

And isn't it great that my computer has a camera in her forehead? She's the wave of the future, and I think she's going to rule over the technology with a remarkably portable, 5-pound plastic fist.

crash course

2009-07-12T14:52:33Z

So, back in Bellwood. Capt. Pharmacy was going to take his OH state board exams when he was run off the road in Dayton, OH, which crashed his car into a concrete jersey barrier. The brother is shaken, not stirred; bruised, not battered, and he's without a concussion or anything. The car's a bit of a different story. Accounts differ as to its fate, but there are a few known facts: The car no longer has a front bumper, lots of stuff leaked from the front end, and the trunk won't close now.

The parents went out to Ohio last night in case they were needed and asked me to drive back for an indeterminate amount of time to look after the kid sister, to get her to work, and to make sure there's no inappropriate canoodling between her and her Boy Scout, though I really don't give a rat's posterior of what they're up to; they're old enough to make their own decisions, whatever those are. So I'm here in Bellwood, after driving last night during Kaylee's dinner time (made for a very angry kitty, but she's happier now..

Sacrastovoyance, at its best (worst?): Capt. Pharmacy called me yesterday, about two hours before his exam, after I just spent about $70 on food b/c the parents were originally going to be out in Yuppyshire yesterday. He expressed surprised at the fact that the parents actually made plans to visit me (never happens, seriously), and I said, "Yeah, I still don't expect it to happen in real life." I think sarcastoyance inadvertently cursed Capt. Prescription-filler into a barrier. And now he's w/o a car, though the insurance will get him a rental for a little while.

And Father Fiction just emailed me and asked if I could housesit more, until the 23rd. >_<

oy fucking vey.

In a family album, snapshots of a thousand words or more

2009-07-06T14:47:48Z

Apparently I'm housesitting for Tom Bailey, so still driving back and forth between S-grove and Yuppyshire at least twice a day (it's okay, the big woofies can run outside and fight groundhogs, as they apparently now do). But right now, I'm at work. Doing...um...not...work?

Good idea: Reading for fun. Bad idea, reading a 625 page novel in the course of two days, especially when one has misgivings about it. Not the "this is a terrible book" kind, but the "This is well written but I'm not so sure I care about the story/characters" kind. That being said, I present a book review, since I haven't posted one in about, well, since I first started this journal:

Beyond the Bedroom Wall: A Family Album
by Larry Woiwode
Hardcover: New York, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1975, 620 p
Paperback: New York, Graywolf, 1997, 625 p

Every family has the somewhat bookish aunt or uncle with the hornrimmed glasses, frizzy hair, and rumpled clothes who begins every family reunion with an Odyssey-length recounting of family lore. Being sure to recite every detail--friends, other branches of the family, occupations, the morbid deaths of great-aunts or -uncles--this family storyteller simultaneously fascinates and exhausts the gathered listeners with a litany of anecdotes, genealogies, and family claims to fame.

In Beyond the Bedroom Wall, Larry Woiwode tires his readers just as easily, just from the scope and sheer mass of his novel.

At its heart, the novel arcs across a trajectory of Dickensian proportions--the lives of three generations of the Neumiller family, originally from North Dakota--and this narrative results in the compiling of the family stories contained in the novel. A sort of metafictional family album that becomes about the creation of a family history, Beyond the Bedroom Wall begins with Charles Neumiller, struggling to sleep and remembering his hometown of Hyatt, North Dakota (a community far too small to ever have a Hyatt hotel, certainly). From here, the novel flashes back two generations to Charles's grandfather, after whom he was named, and traces the family through generations of farmers, laborers, and educators. There are stories of secret boys' clubs, a roll-top desk where Charles's father insists that he'll write the story of his life, an attic full of another family's forgotten relics and heirlooms, and of course the tragic deaths--the drowning of a sibling, the losses of parents and grandparents.

Viewed as a series of episodes, the novel has a certain interesting effect, as if viewing a series of snapshots in each of the anecdotes. The copyright page reveals that much of the novel was published elsewhere, as short stories or excerpts, and this format in some way seems preferable to the forty-plus chapters in the novel form. The narrative shifts back and forth between a variety of perspectives, often betraying the initial impression that Charles will be recounting the story to the readers. And though the stories interlock into a single, progressing storyline, the vast multitude of generations produce a number of smaller, pettier dramas. From the snapshot perspective, where the pieces are viewed separately or episodically--and not as part of a "novel"--the stories succeed. As a single piece of work--the "novel"--the tensions often lag, and the plot seems driven only through a model of "and then, and then, and then...."

All this, however, is not to discount the lyricism of Woiwode's writing. Charles's dreamy remembrance of Hyatt initiates the novel in a sort of half-slumber soliloquy, and in this opening he opens the map of Hyatt in his mind and travels down the town's one street, which he remembers as it was when he last visited, at age six, wearing a plaid jacket just like his older brother's. These first twenty pages produce a thumbnail sketch of Woiwode's novel, intimating the degree of detail, lyricism, and imagination that cord throughout the novel. But here, of course, also lies the novel's greatest weakness: All of the third- and first-person narrators speak with this profoundly intelligent, witty, lyrical voice, and there is so little dynamic contrast between these speakers that the novel's diction seems to call attention to the artifice of the novel, in what is probably an unexpected manner.

As a novel, the music seems a little off, but the episodic construction of the narrative could make the piece stronger, if the reader is willing to perceive the book as a collection of anecdotes meaningful to the Neumiller family. Or, perhaps they will find themselves stuck listening to the family historian, waxing poetic about the ancestors' days back in the Dust Bowl.

Webisode Two: Two Off

2009-07-01T01:57:14Z

So it's the end of the second night of the workshop. The usual array of insanity has ensued, with photocopying, keeping kids quiet, making sure everybody gets a chance to talk, and--of 6.5 hours in the classroom--leading 4.5 hours of workshop. It's been okay so far, a pretty good workshop environment, overall.

At lunch yesterday, the Memoirist greeted me with, "Hello, you." We also reminisced about a Walt Whitman gathering last summer.

Mostly, I feel bad for my cat, who I've only been seeing twice a day, with these little secretive escapes (one at 5 a.m. and the other between the end of workshop and dinner), and she's obviously been antsy during the days. Poor girl. I get back to see her and it's like Purr-fest twenty-aught-nine because she's been there all alone.

Also, I have been devastated by the fact that Strong Bad has blown up another computer. Actually, some punk asked him what explosion he remembers the best and, having concluded that the best explosions came from his computers, Strong Bad blew up Lappy! >_<

Being anywhere between six to eight years older than the high school kids has been a bit weird, and I feel very...in between the groups here. It's remarkably odd. But then again, I've spent the past year hanging out in my apartment on my lonesome or with my cat, so I'm sort of used to the odd/frequent bit of isolation. Seriously, though, you can't go home again, and this place just isn't the same without my girls.

Tomorrow, more of the same, then more of the same on Thursday and then on Friday. I suppose it's worth the line on the CV and the money.

Additionally, I saw the most awesome professor to ever don black jeans today, and he called a recent project that aloveaffair and I did, and I quote, "brilliant."

Webisode One: Here Comes the Rain

2009-06-28T23:23:03Z

So here's the background: Student was supposed to be working with the Grand Old Man of Fiction, but he had a summer class and couldn't TA the workshop. So I, apparently the official second string for the SU Writers Institute, was asked if I'd be willing to come back and do this thing again. Since I graduated, I had to go through all of the paperwork to become an official hire, and so I'm now officially a member of the Susquehanna faculty. Cool, no?

This has been the typical first day. No weird antics to report quite yet, though I imagine there will be a few before the week is out. Parents couldn't figure out that a room numbered 319 would be above the first floor, so that produced some problems that made me run from Deg to Apfelbaum in order to guide people. (Love the running, love the running!) Also, there's a kid from my old high school here, and he's in the Grand Old Man's section, to boot. Could be awkward, could be interesting. I'll just have to see how it goes. It was a usual start, though, lots of mispronounced names from the usual source of mispronounced names, a few awkward interludes during the student orientation session, and then a giant tour (which turned into yours truly talking very loudly to 60 students and perhaps yelling "Allons-y!" several times to get the group moving again). And like the Doctor, I had to explain, "What? It's French! It means 'let's go!'"

Also, I believe in dressing your family in corduroy jackets, wool caps, and blue jeans. By the end of the tour and the torrential downpour, I was the only person without an umbrella to be remotely dry.

I may not update everyday, just because the schedule is always packed and I still have to make two surreptitious disappearances a day to check on Kaylee Cat. But she's been really angsty with me the past few days, so maybe she'll appreciate my time away... :-/

Prelude: Checkin' in

2009-06-28T20:58:40Z

So I'm a TA for the summer writers' workshop again. Long story. Let's just see how this thing goes (though it means that I'm now officially an employee of Susquehanna University). Updates soon, but I have to go tell high school kids where the caf is and usher them around from one meeting to the next.

So far, my favorite is the father who asked completely unironically, and I quote, "So I leave the building by opening the doors?"

RM, over'n'out.

Moves That Exterminate the Competition

2009-06-24T15:12:47Z

This is only 18 seconds, and you don't really need to know anything about Doctor Who to appreciate it. It just looks like they're having so much fun! This is my new favorite thing ever. EVER.

Dance, Daleks, dance!