I Canna Take It, Captain!

I can't read another goddamn word. Not one more. Not about nineteenth-century European history, not about the Ottoman Empire, not about grant applications, nothing. Here's what I can do:

• I can read the funniest online comic of them all.
  
• I can watch clips of the funniest show of them all (next to Arrested Development).
  
• I can bust some sweet dance moves. No link to that.
  
• I can dread the conference at which I must speak this weekend.
  
• I can "prepare," by silently cursing the day of my birth, the discussion section I have to lead in 1.5 hours.
  
• Shit, man, I can go for a walk in the rain and pretend I'm Eeyore. And I can listen to Teddybears on my iPod while I do it!
  

Actually, that last one sounds like a plan. And I'm off!

This Charming Fellow

Here's the guy I'm writing my dissertation about: André Gorz.* Here's what I'm not saying in my research prospectus or grant/fellowship proposals: I'm writing about him for exactly two reasons. And they are:

1. I can do most of the research here in SC. He published a lot and it's available in the UC library system and/or Worldcat.**
   
2. I admire him. He was a radical philosopher and journalist, but he wasn't at all dogmatic or pig-headed, unlike some people he knew and worked with.

Today I wrote my research proposal (or, at least, a draft thereof), read a book about the French Revolution, graded a mess of quizzes, worked out, made dinner, and drank some gin and some wine. I'm not sure I have it in me to clean the bathroom, which was supposed to be the grand finale to this exciting day.

We had C and Tweak/J over for drinks and one of the top 3 funniest movies ever made last night, which was fun. The wee one drank her gin and tonic a little too fast, but she managed not to fall over, so all was well.

I'm wearing my commie hat to section tomorrow. Time to fly the colors.

* Along with his wife. They had one of those love-of-the-era kind of marriages. Like Princess Bride, you know?
** For a few reasons. My French still sucks. The Euro is 100 to the dollar right now. And I just don't want to be in Europe for months and months. I'm sorry, I just don't take this shit seriously enough to want to do that and be away from B for that long.

Addendum: I'm still going to France, just not for, like, ever. The days of the year or two-year research trip are numbered, at least for Europeanist grad students...

Raising the Rent

So our rent got hiked. Keep this in mind: if you want to live in a small (about 500 sq. ft.) one-bedroom apartment in SC, it'll cost you 1075 a month.

It's an appropriate allegorical event for how I'm feeling right now. My shelves in the bunker are rapidly approaching seriously-full status and are, at this point, literally bending under the weight of the huge tomes on European history. As of my meeting with my adviser the other day, I'm responsible for 1789 to the present in my field statement, which bumps up my reading list by about 50%.. I'm producing my dissertation prospectus and applying for things while I'm simulteneously trying to keep up the pace of the reading and writing. Somewhere in there I'm teaching middle eastern history.

The real thing that's bothering me, though, is the feeling of social dispersion. I miss Oregon, as ever, but I find myself missing even how things were last year here in SC. Our cohort still exists and we're all still friends, but the gatherings are infrequent and people are often too exhausted, or just antisocial, to go out. The most important piece of advice I got from my former advisor at UO was that the quality of your fellow grads is as important as the quality of the program you're in as a whole; if you don't have smart, supportive people to spend time with, the experience is miserable and isolating. This term just sucks for everyone, but here's me hoping it turns around a bit and we spend more time drinking and talking shit about the department together.

As an aside, it's raining like nuts. So at least the drought's over.

Like Stand Up Comedy at a Mortuary

...that's how it feels to lead discussion sections a lot of the time.

My Tuesdays, they are ugly bitches this term. I'm in lectures, seminars, and discussions all day from 10:00am to 7:00pm, not including the time it takes to get to and from the city on the hill. The killer is leading the section last; it's this huge burst of energy on my part as I try to make it, you know, not completely suck. Because I'm so out of it by the time it begins, I've already produced two logistical foibles this term that I had to correct via e-mail once I realized that I'd screwed up. And me, I don't produce logistical foibles. I DON'T PRODUCE LOGISTICAL FOIBLES.

On a happier note, my advisor really liked my MA paper and thinks I should polish it up and try to get it published in a lefty history journal or a feminist history journal (ha ha...big difference.) Any suggestions for journals I might seek out? He had mentioned History Workshop.

On a less happy note, I have a lot, lot, LOT of French historiography to catch up on before my QE.

B's mouth still really hurts and she has a nasty headache tonight to boot. On the up side, she was able to eat part of a scrambled egg earlier. It just took a long time.

This evening is one of those times I'm really in touch with my "flee to a cabin in the woods" fantasy. What the hell: I'll upgrade the fantasy to a "flee to my compound in the woods" scenario. Everyone could come hang out; J is in charge of security.

Long Haul, Good Songs

So B is hanging in there. Much to our shared chagrin, the real problem has been the antibiotics, not the pain. She's on day 5 of a 5-day antibiotic assault meant to prevent infection in the transplanted tissue. In turn, the antibiotics make her really, really nauseous for several hours a day. That makes it hard for her to eat, which makes it hard for her to take painkillers, which makes everything suck even more.

Happily, this is the last day she has to take an antibiotic and we both have high hopes that she'll be over the hump as of tomorrow.

In unrelated news, I recently purchased the new Magnetic Fields album. It is awesome, like just about everything that guy has ever done. Here are the lyrics to my favorite song, which is definitely going on my "welcome to the inside of my head '08" mix I'm making.*

California Girls
See them on their big bright screen
tan and blonde and seventeen
Eating nonfood keeps them mean
but they're young forever
If they must grow up
they marry dukes and earls
I hate California girls

They ain't broke, so they put on airs,
the faux folks sans derrieres
They breathe coke and have affairs
with each passing rock star
They come on like squares
then get off like squirrels
I hate California girls

Looking down their perfect noses
at me and my kind
do they think we won't
well, never mind

Laughing through their perfect teeth
at everyone I know
do they think we won't
Get up and go?

So
I have planned my grand attacks
I will stand behind their backs
with my brand-new battle ax
Then they will they taste my wrath
They will hear me say
as the pavement whirls
"I hate California girls..."

* I try to do these every once in a while. Most come up short, but I did produce a mix back in about '03 when I was in the thick of corporate IT that still holds up. The trick is finding songs that not only rock out, but accurately reflect some nasty little corner of one's psyche.

New Hat!

From some trendy hot-topic style designer! A steal at only 6 bucks off of amazon! The running dogs of capitalism are scared stiff(er) knowing that be-sweatered grad students in an obscure UC are plotting their downfall!

Ok, back to work...

Cut Up With a Scalpel

So, yesterday B had oral surgery: gum grafting. It's where they slice chunks off of the roof of your mouth and stitch them under/into your gums to repair damaged or receding gum-lines. It's painful, expensive, and all-around gnarly, but in the long run we expect it to be worth it.

She was out of surgery at about 1:30pm, so we headed home and made the best of the rest of the day:

• Fruit smoothies with honey.
• Vicodin, ibuprofen, antibiotics, acidopholis.
• Soup.
• Ice packs.
• More vicodin.
  
• The entire first season of America's Top Model, start to finish.*

Once the vicodin kicked in, she felt okay. This morning she was feeling pretty miserable, but I think that's to be expected; the problem with sleeping when you're hurt or sick is that you can't do the things (ice-packs, painkillers) that make you feel better, even though sleep is the best thing for you overall. By the time I left for campus, she was starting to feel basically human again.

So: we are accepting well-wishes and remote hi-fives. I'll be on good husband duty for the next week or so and we hope and expect a speedy recovery.

* Which was great! The funny trashy chick beat the self-righteous Christian bible-thumper chick. It was a victory for truth and justice.

Cheer Up, Dickhead

One of the most important scholars I've read in any depth this year is Perry Anderson, probably the most important Marxist scholar writing in English today.* I read yet another brilliant article by him yesterday and, as usual, felt pretty depressed. Basically, the guy is amazing at describing just how terrible everything is and has been for the last couple of hundred years, and it's hard to avoid feeling pretty down after coming to terms with his writing.

Fortunately for me, my brother sent me a bunch of awesome motivational posters. Like this one.


And it occurs to me that one thing grad school has undermined is my ability to indulge in the kind of things that used to make me happy, like funny weird shit and good music. So here's me stating my intention of doing that more frequently from now on. To start with, I'm listening to Wolf Parade right now, and they are completely fucking badass.

* Or, um..."late Marxist?" "Marxian?" "Marx-inspired?" "Radical leftist?" Who fucking cares.