Well, it was worth a shot...

In an attempt to address the "I gotta get outta here" factor I was talking about yesterday, today I decided to try out a different coffee place, even if it meant I got less work done. Which it did: it seemed to take forever to get there, and once I did, I very quickly realized this wasn't going to be a go-to option for me. I will confess that the GF cheesecake was spectacular, but the last thing on this earth I need is to eat cheesecake--and the coffee was the sadly typical, Starbucks-influenced burned/bitter brew that seems virtually inescapable these days. Plus, the place smelled faintly of patchouli incense, which is a smell I find nauseating, so all in all, I'd say I'm glad I tried it, because now I know I never have to go back.

I did get a little work done, but when I got home, I found myself scrounging around to find alternative places to work in Manhattan: I've developed this wild fantasy that I'm going to go into the city, settle in to work somewhere, and then go to a dance class--maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday... Thursday, I have an actual appointment in the City, then am meeting friend and office-mate William for convivializing--and yes, there's another dance option that evening as well.

I know heading into the City is unlikely to become a part of the regular routine, but I would like to find a class that I like well enough that I think I can commit to it even when I am back in the classroom. It's good for me to be a student as often as possible, so I can feel stupid and frustrated and keep my empathy tanks topped up.

Whatever I end up doing tomorrow, I do want to put the work foremost, so I'll only head into the city if I can get up and out of here early enough. (I also realize I have to stop having coffee in the afternoon: gee, Prof. P, ever wonder why you have a hard time getting to bed early?) I find I'm highly tempted to embark on more work now, but if I do, I'll have to overcome my own wound-upness in addition to caffeine in order to get to bed, so I'm signing off for now. It's time to start letting the turbines stop spinning--and that takes a long, long time.

Late start, don't want to stop

I slept much later than I intended today, but as I'm still in my "I refuse to set an alarm unless absolutely necessary" frame of mind, I just sleep as long as I sleep--and that means that some days I don't get rolling as soon as I'd ideally like. I didn't much want to work at home either: I'm getting a sort of town-wide version of cabin fever: even going to the various coffee places or the library isn't giving me enough variety, and I'd planned to try to find a different location today, but with the late start, I decided not to take the time. So, I've been doing the timer routine. It annoys me no end that the damned thing goes off just when I'm in the middle of a sentence or thought (this is why, when I'm at the library, I don't move for hours on end: when am I not in the middle of a sentence or thought?)--but I know it is important to get up and move around as much as I can. Otherwise, I'll freeze in "sitting in chair at computer" position and be unable to move at all.

I was mostly working on the glossary and pronunciation guide, but there were a few moments when I thought, "Wait, didn't I say something about that somewhere else?" and when the answer was yes, I had to figure out which place made more sense as the primary spot, and where I could simply cross-reference (as in "see the chapter 'The Science of Science Fiction'").

I should note that I haven't actually started going through the book yet: I'm still working on the parts of the glossary that I had noodled around with in the past, as preparatory work in hope of this sabbatical. Today I finally got through that material: there wasn't really that much, but I keep changing my mind about how I want to do things, and once I make a decision, I have to comb back through everything I've done to make it consistent. But I finally got through all the material I'd already put down, and now I can start working through the book, carefully, chapter by chapter.

I'm on the fence about whether to continue that way now or whether to shift back to other parts of the book. I have one last (I think last) bit of critical material to read and add to the bibliography, and I really do have to face the socio-historical context again at some point. Maybe, since I've given myself a treat for a while (including the weekend off from work entirely), I should do at least a little of the more frustrating stuff, try to get it out from under my feet so I can sail off on the fun stuff again, free and clear (or as free and clear as it gets coming up with a first draft. Revision yet awaits--and I need another sabbatical or two just for that, if past practice is any guide.)

Right now, I have a stack of books at my feet: style manuals (Chicago and MLA), books of Le Guin's essays, one book of short stories that has helpful stuff in the introduction, the novel itself. I need to pile it all carefully on the living room table, in such a way that my daffy little calico cat doesn't feel compelled to put tooth marks in the covers. I'd wish for a study with a door I can close, or a studio space in the back yard, to keep my work free of cat participation--but I rather like having a cat in the room with me as I work. If the price I pay is the occasional chomped book cover, well, there are certainly worse things.

I wouldn't stop now, but I have an appointment this evening that I have to keep, and I need some time to get ready for it. This is a great feeling: the sense of wanting more work, more time at it, instead of that horrid feeling of "how much more of this do I have to endure before I can quit in good conscience?" I am so unbelievably, incredibly blessed to have this time to do this work this way. Thanks and praise, thanks and praise.

comparison/contrast

Oh, the difference between today and yesterday!

I got another late start today--long story which (unusually) I won't get into--but I realized that working on the socio-historical chapter was kicking up the "I'm stupid and I don't know what I'm doing" road blocks, so rather than trying to simply knock them down and continue, I decided to take a detour and spent today working on the glossary and pronunciation guide. And I'm finding it very difficult to make myself stop. I have errands I must run today (life maintenance that I've been putting off too long), so I really can't just keep going and going, but I'm happy as the proverbial clam. Happier, because, let's face it, clams are happy because they have no brains, and I'm happy because I'm having a blast using mine.

I'm also having a blast corresponding with Le Guin. I asked her if she minded that I reposted one of her blog entries on my Facebook page, and if she would mind if I gave the link to a different post to our Women's Studies coordinator. (The post on my FB page was about personal anger; the one for Women's Studies is about feminist anger.) We had a lovely little back and forth about that, about cats, about where Genly is from....

One of the things I particularly admire about her as an author is that she is so willing to let readers take over control of a book once it's published. She's got strong feelings about a few pronunciations--and she has very strong feelings about the fact that many of her characters are specifically described as not looking Anglo-Saxon, a description that is often ignored in cover art and film/TV adaptations--but she says that she figures readers should pretty much be allowed to pronounce things how they want. Also, when I checked in about where Genly is from (the novel says "Borland," which doesn't exist on Earth--at least not now), she said that her assumption had been like mine, that it was in southern Africa (Borland/Boerland), but some people assumed it was Portland--and that she really didn't care either way. All she cared about was, if I say he's from southern Africa, that he not talk with an Afrikaans accent. (No worry there: I assume he sounds like a younger, tenor-range Nelson Mandela.)

Oh, what a grand day. The only thing that I regret is, because I'm working at the library, I've been sitting in this chair, not moving, for almost four hours: not good for the body, but wandering about just to stretch out my legs isn't so easy here, with all my stuff spread out in the corner of the table that I've claimed. All the more reason to stop and get out to do those errands.

And I know that eventually, I'll have built my confidence up enough to head back into the socio-historical stuff and that I'll do fine with it when I do. I have to remember that I don't need to impress historians with what I know: I just need to provide enough to give students a handle on the '60s. (No mastodons. No chiseling runes into rocks.)

I have some life-maintenance stuff going on tomorrow morning into the early afternoon, too, so I don't know for sure when I'll get back to work, but now I really really want to get back to work. This is fun, dammit. I'm enjoying myself.

Packing it in

I've hardly worked at all today, but I'm in some sort of mood that I can't quite identify, so I can't seem to figure out what to do or how or where... so I'm packing it in for the day. I can't even figure out if I want to take care of some life maintenance or if this is a hide-under-the-sofa day, but it's feeling rather like the latter option is going to win. I'm not sure if this resistance is because working on the socio-historical section is making me feel stupid (history is complicated, folks, especially trying to explain the Cold War and Vietnam to students who don't really believe that anything that happened prior to 1990 matters)--or if there is some other resistance going on, but I feel as if I've fought as much as I can for one day.

But I will say--may have said, will probably say again--that one of the unexpected blessings of this sabbatical time is the ability to spend some time with myself, being introspective, in ways that I usually can't (or, maybe more accurately, don't). Work is a wonderful narcotic: it's very handy to be able to say to any personal issue that's begging for attention, "Oh, I can't deal with that now: I have to..." do committee work, grade papers, create/adjust assignments, anything but sit quietly and listen to my inner workings. It is interesting to go this long without that particular drug; maybe I'm going through withdrawal?

Anyway, that's the best I've got for today. We'll see how that wonderful thing called "tomorrow" goes.

They can't all be good days...

Today wasn't a bad day, exactly. I just got a late start because I was futzing around with life-maintenance stuff and campus stuff, so I only got about two and a half hours of work in at the coffee cafe and was already brushing up against the wall. After walking home from the coffee place, it's quite clear that I have no more work in me for today. Yesterday I didn't work at all: I was headachy and tired all day, so I spent much of the day on the sofa, reading popcorn  novels and, I confess, taking a monster nap. (Actually, that was also part of today's late start: I napped late, so I didn't get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, slept late to compensate: the disrupted sleep pattern domino effect.)

Even when I was at the coffee cafe, I spent the first bit of my time there working on my biennial "year end evaluation" form. This is a contractual requirement. Non-tenured faculty have to do one every year, in addition to providing a Professional Development Plan (a five-year plan: one of our interviewees last summer was very funny when we asked him about his five-year plan: "I'm going to collectivize the farms: it'll work this time..."). Those of us who are tenured just have to demonstrate that we're being professionally active, and every other year, we have to fill in the stupid form. (I am aware that a number of my readers know all too well what I'm talking about; bear with me while I explain to those who don't.) The main thing is that we have to demonstrate that we've been to at least two "professional development" events each year--another contractual mandate. Most of us have done more than that, but being on P&B, I've seen some people try to say that attending a play or watching a movie is "professional development." William was rather funny about that, when we tried to explain why merely attending a performance would not count but attending a lecture about a performance would: he said, "So the real issue seems to be whether you enjoyed yourself or not."

Enjoyment (or lack thereof) aside, essentially all I had to do was raid portions of my promotion application--but doing that set off all my fears about my chances at promotion. Again. Walking home, I was thinking, "I'm sure I won't get it. There's no way I'll get it. I haven't done enough." Cue the sad orchestral music and a close-up shot of me brushing away a tear, then putting on a face of courage and determination....

Oh, not really, but I am nervous about the wretched promotion, and this year-end evaluation process just brings that all up to the surface. Damn and blast and hell.

On a completely different note, as I'm working on the "socio-historical context" chapter, I find I keep adding notes to myself: "look this up"; "check this"; "find out more." In some cases I probably don't need to find more, but I'd rather do too much and have to dial back than to find myself in the position of having to stretch something out.

Nothing else of note for the day. Tomorrow will be whatever tomorrow is (apart from being another day and all that).

Posting from the library

I've hit the wall for today; I've had a stiff neck all day (no jokes about that being metaphorically apt, please); I've just begun to feel the early signs of a headache, and I still have a fair amount of walking around to do, finishing my loop of work/errands in town for the day, so I figure that by the time I get home, I won't be in a good frame of mind for looking back on the day.

I must say, it does feel good to have finished the review of critical material--unless or until those other sources come in from interlibrary loan. It did occur to me to see whether the local library, where I now sit, has the book I've requested, but no--which is actually a relief.

And I have been sitting here, starting my charge up the hill of the socio-historical context chapter. I carefully went to the shelves and pulled out some books about the '60s for reference: I did live through those years, but I was very young, so I figure there are aspects of what the experience of the '60s would have been like for an adult that I should check against some kind of sources. I'm not turning up anything yet that strikes me as something I need to include beyond my own basic understanding of what mattered--and particularly what mattered in terms of the novel--but there are a few books I want to look at a little more closely. I also imagine I'll engage in the highly sophisticated and arcane research technique known as "look it up on Wikipedia." Enh, good enough. I'm not writing a historical text, after all: I'm just providing some context for students who consider the 1960s pretty much indistinguishable from the 1860s; for them, it's all just ancient history.

I actually make some minor jokes about that in what I'm writing--which may or may not make the final cut. Ditto my acknowledgement that I was around during that time. I know I seem older than Methuselah to my students but the fact that the things I'm talking about took place within the living memory of someone who didn't come out of Tales from the Crypt can help them consider that the history wasn't all that ancient--and I can assure them that, in some ways, plus ça change, c'est toujours le meme chose.

The same might be said of my blog posts. But I digress.

As I'm mentally combing through the novel and significant events of the '60s, I keep thinking "Oh, yeah, and I should mention that, too"--and then losing what I thought I'd mention. (Note to self: write shit down.) But I trust that eventually whatever it is will drift back to the surface--if it really was important. And, thinking of now versus the 1960s, let me here note how thrilled to bits I am to be writing the thing on a computer--even an antiquated one--instead of having to produce it on an old manual typewriter. I can go back and add things as they occur to me: I can change stuff, move it around, cut it (and save it elsewhere: never, ever throw something away until you know you've finished the project and sometimes not even then), add stuff in. It's bliss. I almost wish I could get a room full of old Royal typewriters and make my students write at least one version of their papers that way--and do a revision that way, too (making "cut" and "paste" return to their original meanings)--so they'll appreciate how easy it is to rework material on a computer.

Anyway.

It's just nice to have moved on to something else: this feels like progress. I don't even care how many pages I managed to squeeze out; it's just nice that I've finished at least the first pass on something. In fact, I may have finished the first pass on several things: once I get through the context chapter, I think I'll print out what I've got and start reading it over, revising on paper: a step I truly need. But even as I start doing that, I've promised myself that, as of April 1, I can turn my attention to the novel itself. I'm sure I'll continue the process as it's worked so far: main focus on one thing but periodic jaunts through other sections as ideas jump out. Working through the novel will mean working on two sections at once: the themes part and the glossary and pronunciation guide. (Did I mention that I ran across a bit in Le Guin's web page in which I learned, to my chagrin, that I've been mispronouncing one of the protagonists' name since I first read the book? I'm mentally practicing the correct pronunciation every time I write the name: Genly, with the G as in "get.")

But this is it for today. Nothing to add to the blog post, just strapping on my pack and hiking off to finish up errands and hike on home. A good day.

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.