Thursday Tune: Revolution

Because I am fed up with the war against women and this sort of thing, this is my mood.

Vote Today!

I don't usually focus on politics, but today all USA-ians have the opportunity to change our country and our influence on the world. It is your duty as a citizen to get out there and vote. Of course, I have definite opinions about who are the best candidates, but my haranguing you here won't affect your vote. I will say that I'm voting to end the horrors of the last eight years, a culture of deceit and cynical war-profiteering by old men who can't remember how many houses or factories they own, who show contempt for their fellow citizens and got us mired in an illegal war based on lies and personal aggression.

I am tired of fear-mongering fools who use their own mental faculties to disparage intellect and education, to the extent that the education system in this country has reached a crisis of over-management and discouragement to both instructors and students. I despair at a nation that values the arts so little, obsessing instead about their own fifteen minutes of shallow fame.

Vote! Your life, your job and the survival of the world may just depend upon it.

Boxing Day

Just taking a break from the numbing process. Today we need to box up everything that's sitting on furniture large enough to have to be moved on the truck that we rented for tomorrow. Time to turn off the brain in order to avoid thinking about a) how much stuff we still have, b) how hard it will be to drag it up to the third floor, and c) how it will not all fit anyway. Yes, yes, we brought it on ourselves. No one should pity us. Just reporting the facts, ma'am. And doing a good impression of a Romero extra.

Tomorrow will be the deciding day: what doesn't fit (furniture-wise), has to go... somewhere. Not in the aerie. Shelves that don't fit mean books that won't fit either. I just don't know. I don't think I can fit too many more books in my office. But we're not going to live with boxes like now; I've had enough of that.

Save the date: Saturday June 28th -- I think by then everything that's going there will have to be situated. Sangria in the afternoon, chips and salsa and the unveiling of the new digs. It's small, but there are the stairs for overflow. Kipper will just hide under the bed anyway.

Yard sale at the old place the day after... everything must go.

How to Survive Moving

Don't do it...

Vecchia Zimarra

Off to Connecticut tonight to empty out the storage space. I shall have to sing my goodbyes to the things we throw away (may they be many). But I'll think about that later -- work to do now and anyway, I should be thinking about seeing friends tonight (a much more pleasant thought).

I woke up thinking of Dorothy Parker:

When I am sober and the grass springs up green,
I will tell you the meaning of miracles you have seen.
When I am tipsy and the grass has grown brown,
I'll explain why good intentions usually drown.

I looked into extending my trip, but purchasing a one-way ticket for a different date would cost over $1100. Yikes. Maybe next year when I am not taking a group of students to London (I swear), I can have more free time.

Random Thoughts

Why, oh why, did I agree to do this summer class? Still getting details settled. At least the airfare and hotel should be all set, but the money never goes quite as far as you'd hope. The Globe hasn't called me back but they said they would hold the tickets even if their credit card service continued to have problems (just like last year). And yes, I did get tickets for Midsummer Night's Dream and not Lear, although I may go to that myself afterward. But for some of them it may be the first time to see real theater -- let's go for the magic rather than tragedy.

I am still determined to write that Nick Lowe musical one day. Every time I hear Mary Provost, I see the shape of it in my head.

I'm not even going to mention moving...

Yet a little thing like hearing Queen's "We are the Champions" on the way to campus can lift my spirits a little. Just as well -- it's Arthurian day in our swift run through the Middle Ages (a thousand years of literature in three weeks -- ha), so I will be playing clips from Holy Grail and the Gawain films as well as yes, A Knight's Tale.

Becoming Elinor Dashwood

We are moving again; at least this time, it's only about 10 miles. Nonetheless, it will be (as always) difficult. Even more so because we are moving into town and, necessarily, into a smaller place (that's city life). On the plus side, the apartment is three blocks from my office and includes heat and water. That means savings in gas as well as money. It's a lovely little apartment and very light. Four closets -- in contrast to the one we share at present. No attic and no shed, however, which will prove a challenge.

I have decided that I must approach this as Elinor Dashwood would. The heroine of Austen's Sense and Sensibility provides the perfect model (appearing above in the fabulous paper doll version by Legacy Pride). We must simply do without a lot. Part one: go to Connecticut and get everything out of storage later this month (probably the 17th). Be ruthless: we will need a storage place here, but we want to unload things we could not convince ourselves to abandon when we moved to Texas. We'll be able to get some of the books that we could not take with us then and swap out some that we do not need at present.

I have a feeling those stairs up to the third floor will make some choices easier.

To seal my fate, I took the requisite on-line quiz which persuades me that I am in fact inclined in that direction:

Take the Quiz here!

That Kind of Day

But there are few moods that cannot be elevated by hearing (and seeing) the Dickies sing the Banana Splits theme.

In Dreams

So, I woke up at 4 am from a dream in which I had been shot in the back. I think I was shot once more, but the bullet ripping through my back seemed the most important. I knew it was crucial not to panic, but because I was being calm, no one paid me any attention. I could feel my consciousness fading away and everything getting dark and then, finally, people were leaning over me looking concerned as I sank down.

Then, of course, I woke up.

Things had gone well on Monday, less well yesterday (I shouldn't have a student crying in my office on the second day of classes). Today seems better -- better than waking up at 4 with a horrible dream, anyway...