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THINGS HAVE CHANGED:

Since I am no longer a professor in the classroom, this blog is changing focus. (I may at some future date change platforms, too, but not yet). I am now (as of May 2019) playing around with the idea of using this blog as a place to talk about the struggles of writing creatively. Those of you who have been following (or dipping in periodically) know that I've already been doing a little of that, but now the change is official. I don't write every day--yet--so I won't post to the blog every day--yet. But please do check in from time to time, if you're interested in this new phase in my life.


Hi! And you are...?

I am interested to see the fluctuation in my readers--but I don't know who is reading the blog, how you found it, and why you find it interesting. I'd love to hear from you! Please feel free to use the "comment" box at the end of any particular post to let me know what brought you to this page--and what keeps you coming back for more (if you do).





Sunday, March 22, 2015

The little engine that couldn't

First, to give a brief overview of yesterday: I did not, in fact, have to shovel (though I did have to push quite a bit of snow off my car): the pavements were warm enough that the snow was pretty well gone by the time I was getting out the door. On the other hand, I went to yoga class, so my "work day" didn't start until about 1. I made several transitions: parked behind the bookstore/cafe, the Dolphin; walked back up the street to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, walked back toward the Dolphin but went into the library to work for a while; transitioned again to the Dolphin to meet former student/cat sitter/surrogate niece Naomi. She showed up at about 4:30, so that was the end of the day--and despite all the moving around (or possibly even because of it), it felt like a pretty good day.

This morning, the downstairs neighbors turned their music on full blast--at 7:12 a.m. Woke me out of a profound and delicious sleep and launched me immediately into pissed off. I went down the stairs and pounded on their door; they lowered the volume, and I tried to get back to sleep but realized very rapidly that I was far too awake by that point. So I got working today much earlier than usual, despite a leisurely start, and was working cheerfully along when, at about 1 p.m., BOOM BOOM CHICKA-BOOM BOOM BACHATA BACHATA blaring up from downstairs. I tried to keep reading but was way too distracted by skirting the edges of pissed off, so I thought, OK, I'll take a walk and hope either they've stopped by the time I get back or that I can breathe through the irritation and focus on working...

...because I only have one more critical article to do. One. ONE. Yet, when I got home from my walk, I realized I just wasn't going to be able to do it. My brains have decided to jettison any work-related skills, at least temporarily, and to have a longing to play computer game or watch cat videos or something.

And, I have to remind myself that there is still the possibility that a few more critical pieces will show up through interlibrary loan. But in terms of what I have in hand at present, I'm that close to done. Which means I can surely finish up tomorrow--and turn my attention to the only other faintly icky chapter I have to write (socio-historical context: booooor-ing). But as I said to Naomi last night, I'm rather enjoying this process of circling around the novel itself, drawing gradually closer to when I get to dive in, boots and all, and work my way through that delicious text in meticulous detail. I can't wait.

I have to say, it was somewhat chilly today, especially when the breeze kicked up, but it is gloriously sunny and I can walk around in my sneakers: I don't have to wear snow boots. I'm glad I walked and took advantage of the blessing from the weather gods.

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